In the thirteenth hour
by Aenigmatic
Summary: Meeting the Aschen was everything SG-1 could have hoped for in their continuing fight against the Goa'uld. Or is it? An AU take on the episodes '2010' and '2001'. Character death as in the show but with a twist, S/J focused.
1. Connection

**In the thirteenth hour**

**Summary**: Meeting the Aschen was everything SG-1 could have hoped for in their continuing fight against the Goa'uld. Or is it? An AU take on the episodes '2010' and '2001'. Character death as in the show but with a twist.

**Rated**: T, M in later chapters

**Disclaimer**: Some dialogue appropriated from the show itself to fit the plot. No copyright infringement intended.

**Author's note**: This story arose from several pressing questions I had while watching '2010'. How did things get to the point where they were in 2010? How did the relationship between Sam and Jack play out? Why did Jack so vehemently oppose the Aschen alliance? I find it hard to believe that it had just been intuition/soldier's instincts, seeing as he probably knew just what was at stake. This led me down a path where I started out imagining what could have happened. Soon enough, the story took on a life of its own and went somewhere I never thought it would. I hope you'll enjoy the journey as much as I did writing it.

* * *

**Chapter 1 – Connection**

**P4C-970  
December 22, 2000**

The wormhole disengaged with a quick snap behind SG-1, leaving the team of four staring in awe at a sprawling city built over a shimmering ocean of the darkest blue. In the dying light that filtered from an unknown source high in the atmosphere, the city's towering spirals stretched as far as the eye could see and disappeared into the mist that beckoned from the horizon. High above, ships and transporters glided through the air, the hum of the traffic converging at some point several hundred metres into the clouds.

"This is incredible," Daniel breathed in amazement.

It was a sentiment of consensual admiration so rarely shared off-world.

This time, even the sides of Jack's mouth tilted up slightly in appreciation, the small gesture not having gone unnoticed by the rest of his teammates.

"Okay, kids. Time for work."

Slowly, they stepped out together to where the neatly-trimmed vegetation dropped off at the edge of a glassy-smooth circular platform. A long pathway opened up before them, its rectangular edges unfolding gradually as though sensing sentience. The arterial boulevard led straight into the heart of the city, joined by many walkways that came into view once SG-1 crested the slight incline. In the mix of natural and artificial light, the entrance to the city resembled a gateway of which the stuff dreams were made.

Her eyes shining with the thrill of discovery, Sam said, "I can't even begin to imagine their level of technology. This really could be something, Sir."

The Colonel settled a cautious gaze on his second IC, unconvinced. All too often, they encountered patronising alien cultures far too possessive of their own weapons and way too suspicious of the Tau'ri's sudden rise to prominence in the galaxy. Why would this be any different?

"We'll see, Carter. I'd rather not be bitten in the ass later by something we could have easily avoided," he told her in a non-committal tone, catching the grin that she unsuccessfully tried to hold in.

"Yes, Sir."

Teal'c wordlessly took point, his strides longer and surer than the rest.

At the end of the walkway, they were met by a man in an austere, dark grey get-up who greeted them with a formality long forgotten on Earth.

He introduced himself as Borren, the top aide of one of the members in the Aschen Prime Council.

Eager for the cultural exchange to begin, Daniel held out an anticipatory hand, a gesture that Borren ignored.

"Nice dig you've got," the Colonel said lightly in greeting, earning himself a dour look from the Aschen representative.

"Our city was built over fifty-thousand _fe'ol_ ago, Colonel. Much work and thought have been given to its layout and design. Its beauty, to us, is unparalleled."

Borren motioned into the distance with a finger.

Two aides dressed in lighter-grey robes joined their side briefly, holding out wide, heavy boxes made of a pearlescent element.

"I will now ask you to stow your weapons away in these secure containers," Borren announced gravely, "We are a peaceful race and do not approve of unnecessary weaponry in our inner city. You have my reassurance that they will be kept and looked after with much care."

The guy really lacked a sense of humour, Jack thought as he fingered his P-90 before reluctantly relinquishing his grip on the weapon. He saw Carter and Daniel do the same, stripping themselves of their pocket knifes, zats and handguns. Then he motioned to a reluctant Teal'c to pass his staff-weapon along.

It was difficult not to feel more than a tinge of admiration of the city as Borren quickly ushered them onto another walkway that disappeared into a domed-building and emerged again in a large park. The walk took them past regulated streams of water built into the sides of the inner city's walkways, past white and grey buildings that stood around one of the numerous town squares.

All this time, Borren acknowledged Daniel's attempt at making conversation with monosyllabic answers, the severe façade on his face not slipping even for a second.

The last stretch of their jaunt to see the leadership involved a bridge-crossing, a short boat-ride and a winding path through an avenue lit softly with strategically-placed green and yellow lights. Borren led them up the final flight of stairs, then stopped briefly at the large doors that shielded the public from the council chambers of the Aschen Prime.

"You will be meeting Mollum, our official representative of the Aschen Confederation."

Bring him on, Jack thought. How bad could it get?

* * *

Mollum turned out to be an even more emotionless guy than Borren if it were even possible, and by the time introductions and preliminary talks had finished, Jack was convinced that Aschen Prime had been built by accountants, for accountants.

On the other hand, the Aschen offered membership within the Aschen Confederation, a particular group of worlds with which the Aschen have formed mutually-beneficial partnerships. If things went well, they could be a potential ally in the war against the Goa'uld, their technology – unbelievably, willingly shared – possibly even turning the tide of war.

Jack wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth this early on.

They took what they could get. That unofficial stance remained the baseline policy of the SG teams, when it became clear a long time ago that obtaining technology and means of defence often meant the sacrifice of goodwill and good personnel.

They sent an initial, optimistic report back to Hammond about the Aschen, Daniel's effusive praise of their peaceful, advanced society filling the copious spaces in between his and Carter's verbal MALP reports.

Pleased with the news, Hammond ordered them to take their time in their talks, then sent back enough supplies to last a month despite the plentiful provisions that the Aschen offered.

SG-1 ended up spending Christmas and New Year's Eve on the Aschen homeworld, ensconced in the luxurious rooms assigned to them in the visitors' quadrant, celebrating the Earth-bound traditions among themselves with a bottle of Tjuk, the Aschen equivalent of beer. As the early hours of the first of January rolled around, they sat out on the balcony on one of the council's accommodation buildings, admiring the sprawling sights of the Aschen capital city.

It was a beautiful planet. A beautiful night.

Jack lifted the delicate glass bottle housing the green liquid to his lips, sighing softly in appreciation. And it would have been perfect if it were only him and Carter-

Without conscious thought, he clenched his fists in the effort to stop any fanciful indulgences. _Get a grip on your damn head, O'Neill_, he reminded himself brusquely.

Suddenly tired of Daniel's inebriated talk that showed no sign of ending, Jack got up slowly, excused himself and wandered into the expansive courtyard in another part of the visitors' quadrant, leaving the rest of the team to their game of Rummy. He found an empty bench, settled lightly down on it, then looked up at Aschen Prime's wondrous skies.

Then the cool, pleasant winds that circled the planet lifted the light, exotic scent of berries and cream to his nostrils.

A scent that was uniquely Carter.

"Never thought that I'd find you here, Sir. In a place full of plants and trees. And I sent Daniel off with Teal'c in case you were wondering. "

Carter's quiet voice floated over meticulously landscaped shrubbery and flowers, taking on a quality that seemed befitting the hushed, magical night. He turned to face her, seeing her framed against the swirling, atmospheric light that the Aschen had created to fall on their nightscapes, a sight that made his breath hitch.

Jack felt an inexplicable squeeze in his chest, then responded dryly, "It's my secret. I'm a flowers-and-chocolate-type of guy. Trees really do it for me."

It earned a chuckle from her. He shifted to his left and Carter took a seat next to him, leaving a careful distance of a few inches between them. She took a deep breath, loving the natural fragrance that permeated the courtyard, or the park, or whatever it was that the Aschen called it.

"It's beautiful here, Sir," Carter said in appreciation. "I can see why you left."

"Nah, I left because Daniel's a lousy drunk," he offered up with a slight grin. "You want to get away before he starts talking for real."

She nodded her whole-hearted agreement, sharing his humour. Daniel's inability to hold his alcohol was a well-known fact among the SG teams. A lesser-known fact was that he tended to get into belligerent philological arguments when halfway inebriated, then slipping into a cocked analysis of Ancient Egyptian grammar when completely tanked.

They spent the new few minutes in companionable silence, listening to the winds gently rustle the leaves and the branches of the trees that hung low over the bench.

Then Jack started to speak, ruining the moment deliberately, not ready for the perfect scene to turn more intimate than it should. He steered the both of them back to the topic at hand, the negotiations, and the potential of the Aschen as a firm ally.

Carter spoke with the same optimism that she used when she tackled scientific projects, pouring out her hopes a little too fervently in the way she wished for the Aschen to be the big breakthrough of the SGC that had always seemed elusive.

Jack understood how she felt.

The Tok'ra merely remained their sometimes allies and fair-weather friends, despite Jacob Carter and Selmak contributing an earth-bound voice to their ranks. The Asgard, busy with their own galaxy's enemies, didn't always turn up when they were most needed and Jack got the feeling that they often rode on the goodwill of the Supreme Commander of its fleet. But Thor also had a nasty habit of turning up with pesky problems…and rendering aid typically meant they got their asses singed more than they liked.

He didn't even want to get started on the Tollan.

It would be great, fantastic even, to actually make the acquaintance of a race that was finally willing to share all that they had and even admit them into a confederation of planets where the flow of knowledge and supplies promised to be unlimited. Even though, Earth, comparatively, had very little of worth to offer the Aschen.

It was scarcely believable. And somehow, it just didn't feel right.

Deep in his gut, something gnawed. Or maybe he was too hardened a soldier and too much of a failure as a father to believe it when something looked too good to be true.

"So I'm the only one having second thoughts?" Jack asked, unable to stop the question from escaping his lips. If he couldn't trust his second IC with his misgivings, who else could he have gone to?

Carter hesitated and pursed her lips. He saw her enthusiasm flag, then mellow into a thoughtfulness that appeared as a frown on her face.

"I think, Sir, that the Aschen's offering everything that Earth could ask for. We'd be fools not to accept it. Think about it," she continued, her articulate discourse gaining speed in her building excitement, "Even in preliminary negotiations, they're already offering vaccines that will eradicate diseases that our planet has struggled to eradicate for a long time. And think about the technology that they will be imparti-"

"Ahh!" He sucked in a breath and blew it out slowly.

Jack stopped her with an exaggerated hand over his ear, drawing a brilliant grin from her. Carter's outburst showed enough of her unfailingly good opinions of their new alien friends. He appreciated her attempt at assurances and while, he didn't trust the Aschen, not until they proved themselves over and over, he trusted her. Years of working together, watching each other's sixes had a way of forging this particular committed working relationship in fire and ice.

The amused contrition on her face was easy to pick out even in the dim light. Mistaking his resigned sigh for impatience, she said, "Sorry, Sir. But I really do think we have something good here."

Outwardly, Jack remained silent and acquiesced.

He was still pondering the soundness of the deal that the Aschen offered them when Carter stood up and took a last look around with a regretful sigh. "I think I should call it a night, Sir. We've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow."

"Don't let the bed bugs bite, Carter," he quipped his goodnight as she turned and walked away, leaving him alone under the stars again with his thoughts.

Five years of fighting the Goa'uld with no end in sight.

The Aschen's sudden appearance in their list of planets to explore also happened at a convenient time – just as Hammond was pressured to justify the costs of running the SGC.

Yet, somehow the idea of an enlightened world with superior defence capabilities and increased lifespans hadn't gotten him running around in excitement like it had done for Daniel and Carter. For Teal'c, it had been simpler. The end of the fight with the Goa'uld would also mean that his family would finally know peace.

But it also meant that the changes to come would be momentous.

In fact, he knew beyond a doubt, knew deep in his bones that the Aschen would see to it that Earth would be changed beyond recognition in a matter of decades.

Just thinking of the first major change – the Stargate program going public and the far-reaching consequences of such an announcement – gave him a headache. Political and military interest seldom went hand-in-hand; he'd learnt that long ago. The SGC's constant tussles with Kinsey and the Russian government were proof positive facts of the difficulty in maintaining that delicate balance that kept the sharks at bay while allowing the SG teams to do their jobs. Hammond had done all he could to keep the SGC autonomous, but his actions were often limited and not without consequence.

The formation of an Earth-Aschen alliance would be a significant turning point in the SGC's history. In short, the Aschen's proposal of an alliance should be the best thing that happened to them, right?

So why was he the only one left with a bad feeling about this?

* * *

**SGC  
Colorado Springs  
January 3, 2001**

SG-1 returned to the SGC to a pleased-looking Hammond, who ordered them into the infirmary and into the locker room before the post-mission briefing commenced.

Janet checked them out and declared all of them in perfect health.

They entered the briefing room an hour later to see a handsome, immaculate-dressed brown-haired man sitting where Teal'c usually sat, conversing with the General in hushed tones.

"SG-1," Hammond began after they got comfortable in a seating configuration made awkward by the other man's arrival, "I would like to introduce Ambassador Joseph Faxon, the official representative whom the Presiden has chosen to represent us in the negotiations with the Aschen."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Faxon said, picking up where the General left off. "I cannot begin to say how much I am in awe of what you all do down here and I definitely look forward to working with all of you."

His introductory words garnered a chorus of tentative greetings around the table.

Hammond cut in, eager to get down to business. "Major Carter, I believe you have prepared a report for us."

Sam got up, dimmed the lights and began a summative report of the Colonel's threat assessment of the alien race, Teal'c observations of the Aschen's weaponry and Daniel's finer points about their cultural worth followed. She was just into the second paragraph of her analysis of the scientific aspects of their technology when Hammond held out his hand.

"Thank you, Major. That'll be all for now. I'll read the rest when you submit the final version of it."

She nodded, turned the lights back on and returned to her seat, exchanging a nonplussed look with Daniel as she walked past him.

"Now, I want to hear personally what each of you thought of the mission," Hammond stated firmly, closing the report that Sam left on the table next to him.

It is Teal'c who spoke first, surprising everybody. "I believe that the Aschen will be formidable allies in the war against the Goa'uld."

Daniel was quick to point out his approval of their newfound allies. "The Aschen is an erudite, practical and patient race, using their great intelligence to improve their civilisation through long-term planning. By that I mean centuries into the future. I've actually spoken at length with Borren and Mollum and they've assured me that they prioritise peaceful operations within the confederation. Their willingness to share technologies and medical cures is beyond what we could ever ask for."

Jack stared at the animated man whom he holds responsible for dragging his sorry ass back over the edge, then back down at the copy of the report that Carter had given him. Whether he considered himself a cynical man or not, his team's whole-hearted acceptance of the Aschen was enough to set alarm bells ringing through his head.

"Indeed."

"General, the Aschen have also agreed to help set up a defence shield for Earth-"

"Now, hang on a minute. Doesn't anybody think that's a bit too generous of them? Or that there's something's overwhelmingly off-centre here?" Jack objected.

Hammond reared back into his seat and turned to Jack. "What do you mean, Colonel?"

"Look," he explained and tried to get them to see his point, "I'm not trying to be a wet blanket here, but don't you think it's all happening too fast? That things are going way too well even in the first stages of negotiation? We gate to the planet of the most sour-faced people I've ever seen in my life – advanced civilisation or not aside – and suddenly we're welcomed as part of their technology-sharing, aid-providing programme. The funniest thing here? They've not asked for much in return."

"The Aschen did explain, Sir, that the Stargate on Aschen Prime was only recently discovered buried like ours was, and no DHD was ever recovered," Sam interjected. "In their attempt to work the gate without a DHD to compensate for stellar drift, they dialled various combinations of the glyphs without much success and only managed to establish gate travel between worlds closest to their planets – planets which have drifted the least, relatively speaking, from their home planet. So until now, the Aschen haven't had the access to an entire galaxy of worlds and races. The whole point is, what we're offering might not seem much to us, but I'd imagine it's worth a lot more to them."

"I imagine that they must have been surprised with the revelation," Hammond speculated.

"Not really, General."

"What Jack is trying to say is that if they were surprised, they'd never show it," Daniel clarified with some chagrin, stealing a glance at the frowning Ambassador next to him. "They…um…they don't really get excited or surprised in general. Over anything."

"I'd have to agree with the Colonel, Sir," Carter put in with a shrug. "They're incredibly intelligent people, but extremely serious about everything, which makes them very hard to read. It does tend to look as though they're emotionless."

Finally, Jack thought. He pushed on, not liking the feeling of being backed into a corner.

"What she said, Sir. Talking to the Aschen is like talking to a bunch of stamped personalities. Automatons. It's a planet of accountants. Look, General, we still know very little of the partnerships that the Aschen have formed within their confederation, merely only what they've told us. Our talks, these past few days, haven't exactly covered that."

"Jack, Mollum already said that planets in the Aschen confederation are mostly sparsely-populated, agrarian societies. The Aschen provide machinery, medicine and even lodging to those who need it. In return, these farming communities provide grain and produce for the Aschen homeworld as part of their trade."

"That's what they say. Daniel, Earth isn't a simple community made up of farmers. It wouldn't be as simple here. We've got way more than farmland and you know that."

Teal'c had no compunctions saying what it was shaping out to be. "Colonel O'Neill mistrusts the Aschen."

"I didn't say that."

"Indeed you have, on several occasions."

"No, I didn't. What I said was, I didn't trust people without a sense of humour. Especially that boring guy."

"I believe his name is Borren, O'Neill."

"That's what I said."

"Same difference to you, Jack," Daniel cut in.

"Okay, people," Hammond stopped the argument from degenerating into a fight of sticks and stones. "I think we've had quite a bit for today. Ambassador Faxon, I hope this briefing has given you a clearer picture of what to expect when the alliance is in progress. SG-1, you're on three days downtime starting now. In the meantime, proceedings will quickly move up to state level."

"Haven't they already?" Jack cast an ironic eye to the Ambassador who gave a slight, abashed smile in return.

The irritation on Hammond's face was clear to all, but he's had his orders. "The President is eager to form this alliance that already looks promising for all the countries of Earth. And if there's nothing else, you're dismissed."

Hammond walked to his office and shut the door. Through the glass, they saw him pick up the red phone.

"So, lunch anyone?" Daniel looked around, seeing Teal'c and Sam slowly get to their feet. "Sam? Teal'c?"

"Well, ther-"

"Actually, Major Carter, would you be able to spare a few minutes?" Faxon cut in smoothly. "Sorry to take you away from your colleagues, but-'

"Ambassador, it would be my pleasure." She cast an apologetic glance at Daniel, pursing her lips briefly. "I'll catch up with you later, Daniel.

Dawning awareness filled Daniel's face. "Uh, okay."

"I must engage in Kel'no'reem, Daniel Jackson."

"Jack?"

"Think I might catch some Simpsons reruns, Daniel," Jack said, then stood and hightailed out of the room. He hadn't missed how the Ambassador lingered on behind Carter during the briefing and the way Faxon had discreetly moved next to her after Hammond had retreated to his office. Hadn't missed the knowing glances that Daniel had sent his way.

His footsteps were harder than usual on the metal railings of the staircase. Whatever it was, he'd be fine with it. He had to be. What choice did he have?

He just didn't want to know.

* * *

The sounds of the other chairs scraping the grey, concrete floor filled the room as Sam moved her chair out of the way. She took her time to set her papers in order, then finally looked up again to see that everyone had gone except for the Ambassador.

"Major Carter," he started out, "Well, that was interesting. I hadn't known that the teams engaged in such…lively debates when it came to cultures, or that Colonel O'Neill disagreed so vehemently to this particular alliance."

She cringed inwardly. It was an awkward question that Faxon had asked, the nuances of which he didn't seem to realise. To affirm his assumption sounded like an implicit acknowledgement of the Colonel's petulance in this particular incidence; denying it meant that she risked being overly defensive of the SGC's procedures and her CO's behaviour.

What could she possibly say about the Colonel who had been unusually vociferous about his misgivings, whose instincts she'd learnt to trust? He hadn't been the most agreeable person during the briefing, yet she had to admit that his questions had cast a wary, but different light on the Aschen's proposals, their pertinence still weighing on her thoughts since the discussion had ended.

Instead, she opted for a polite, diplomatic deflection, knowing full well that he'd recognise her attempt for what it was in an instant. "Ambassador, I think you must realise that we are a front-line team. Our work ensures the security of the whole planet, even if most people don't know it. The Colonel's objections or anyone else's opinions for that matter, will always be taken into consideration when it comes to assessing the security risks of any undertaking with any culture that we encounter off-world. Especially the Colonel's."

"I meant no offence. It was just an observation, nothing more," he said amicably, holding up his hands in a conciliatory manner. "Well, I thought that since we're trading knowledge of the Stargate, I, uh, could use a little more of that knowledge myself."

Sam heaved a small sigh of relief. "I could explain that to you, Mr Faxon, if you have the time," she told him, absently wondering when she'd eaten last. It had been tempting to take up Daniel's offer of lunch, but it looked as though that the ambassador needed a bit more time to acquaint himself with the proceedings in the SGC.

"Please, call me Joe," he smiled at her. "Mr Faxon is my father."

Strangely, it was his directness, that sincere openness that disarmed her. It allowed her to look at him, to talk to a man with a confident surety that had for so long eluded her, so unlike the conflicting haze of desire and emotions that tended to overwhelm whenever she thought of the Colonel and about what they were.

If they were even _anything_.

She forced herself back to what Joe was saying to her. "You know what? I haven't eaten since...well, today."

The ambassador looked sheepish for a second. In a flash, she understood exactly what he was trying to do – sounding out her potential interest in him while cautiously displaying his own.

What hurt could it do to share an innocent meal? Besides, she was hungry as well. The lab could wait another hour.

"The Mess hall is this way. We could talk more there, if you like."

He nodded as a slight smile formed on his face. "I'd like that very much."


	2. Progression

_A/N: It's slow going now, but do hang on. It'll pick up a bit more in the later chapters. Thanks for reading._

* * *

**Chapter 2 – Progression**

**SGC  
Colorado Springs  
April 11, 2001**

It felt different today, Jack thought as he slowly climbed the steps to the briefing room behind Daniel's excited skip.

When the Stargate program was first kicked into operation by an academically-sidelined archaeologist several years ago, he had been pulled into it as an unwilling participant who saw his chance to meet his end in a hostile world far from Earth. But somehow, he returned from Abydos alive, buoyed in particular by the memory of the lively exuberance and courage of an enslaved, longhaired teenager who strove to make his harsh desert homeworld free.

It was mortifying, at first, to really see how willing he was to die when everyone else wanted to live when Daniel had called him on it. At that pivotal moment, the vise-like grip around his chest had loosened, allowing Abydos to carve its signature onto his heart, an invisible but permanent tattoo of inspiration inked as a reminder to keep on keeping on.

And it had only gotten better after that. In the course of the past few years, this same job that had first given him purpose light years away from home later gave him a team whom he called family. And a brilliant, beautiful second IC for whom he felt and thought more about then he was supposed to. Now it looked as though even _that_ was going to be taken away and he was going to be powerless to stop it all.

If there was anything Jack O'Neill hated, it was the helplessness, the powerlessness that dictated he couldn't do a thing to stop what he thought was a significant mistake.

In the past three-and-a-half years, the SGC's existence never failed to be a contentious issue. But they'd prevailed somehow, thanks to Hammond's good sense and the untiring work of the SGC's personnel. This coming alliance with the Aschen…it shook him deep. This alliance was set for a collision course, the end of which he really couldn't imagine but nevertheless worried about.

Unbidden, Jack forced himself to take a good look around in muted apprehension, wondering absently just how much longer he was going to be here.

Changes – momentous and unprecedented changes – were coming. Changes that he didn't like one bit. Because these changes stemmed, in large part, from sources gleaned from a corner of the known universe that had never before dictated how society functioned, how people thought and how services were rendered.

The first of these paradigm-altering changes being the Stargate going public.

It would be long after that Earth's alliance would be unveiled and their new Aschen saviours hailed in another official ceremony highlighting the Confederation's beneficiaries of their supposed goodwill.

He could see it already; a show of pomp and circumstance that many would celebrate without thinking twice. Jack frowned to himself, still disturbed by the speed at which it all went down with a relative lack of further digging.

SG-1 had returned to Aschen Prime several times in the course of the past six months. He'd taken the grand tour himself, gone walkabout in Aschen chambers meant for heads of state from their Confederation planets. He'd personally seen the bio-weapons they fashioned, the kind that were designed to attack and destroy only the specific DNA of their potential enemies. He'd even visited some other worlds in the Eol cluster of the Confederation, quite embarrassingly, as part of the security detail for a top-secret diplomatic team from Earth, and walked on the peaceful South Continent's golden beaches, which had briefly made him think of retirement off-world.

But these visits, instead of having allayed his fears, merely increased the deep-seated suspicion that he was having of their new allies.

It hadn't taken him too long to figure it out why it all felt wrong. The Aschen, Jack realised, didn't seem to have any enemies. They purported themselves to be a peaceful race with no taste for hostile conquest despite their civilisation being leaps and bounds ahead of the agrarian worlds with which they were allied. They'd given the farmers harvesters and numerous vaccines that lengthened lifespans, yet those societies lived in a blissful, disease-free medieval farming world that never looked beyond the usefulness of the wheel.

Jack had pretended enough not to have heard Daniel's constant sociological expositions on the rise and fall of civilisations each time they encounter an alien culture that has greatly influenced Earth's beliefs. But he knew that Daniel's theories, an amalgam of sources on ancient cultures, had made sense, the advancement of technology, the growth of social development and a collective identity being basic tenets of growing civilisations at a particular stage in time.

It took a fool not to see that the allied planets in the Confederation showed no such change. There were no cities, no transport systems worthy of a subsidiary of an advanced civilisation, no strategic defences on any of these planets. Hadn't the provisions from the Aschen opened their eyes to what could be more? Hadn't their aspirations included the progression of their own societies?

There was an incredibly low rate of population growth despite the long lives the inhabitants led as the farming communities remained fully dependent on the Aschen's provisions of electricity and aqueducts. Where was the freedom to innovate? The impetus to break out of that cycle of dependence? Or did that just not exist?

Jack was starting to realise that the deal that the Aschen had cut with the other worlds just didn't looked all that rosy, no matter how much he'd tried convincing himself to see it from his teammates' optimistic and eager perspectives.

A risk analysis he'd quietly done hadn't churned out very good outcomes, borne out of a simple question that Jack frequently asked himself: what would Earth be like at the end of it all, in ten years down the road? Or a century? A transformed Earth, a long-lived population, readily-dispensed medical treatment. Perhaps an end to all wars. Which might put an end to the need for a military service.

But it would force Earth's complete dependence on the Aschen's providence. Peace at the price of liberty.

Having had his life early on bound to duty, structure and routine, this series of changes freewheeled into an inconceivable future that was more upsetting than exciting.

Yet it could finally mean a life where no regulations and obligations stood between-

The thought was quashed before it was even completed. Jack knew that he stood in this alone.

On one of the Confederation planets one day, he'd dropped a wayward hint about the Aschen's less-than-stellar motives, in a rash and perhaps unwise moment of concern. In return, he'd received a look of wordless horror in return from the Aschen representative and waves of disapproval that came from the rest of his team. But what exactly could he do to convince them of exercising a little more caution when they hadn't been willing to listen from the start?

And being the sole voice of dissent on the opposite side of the overwhelming votes was like swimming to shore against a backwash that dragged everything in its path out to the open sea. It hadn't endeared him to anyone, least of all Carter, whose infatuation with the ambassador had given her bigger cause to fight for the Aschen alliance. Daniel was ready to kick him to the curb, and he'd faced down Teal'c intimidating stare more times than he'd cared to count.

There had been talks and more talks in the early stages of diplomatic negotiations. Talks about wide expanses of demilitarised zones in all countries, of Aschen-regulated medicine, of crops modified to yield dramatic increases in order to feed the hungry. A sudden, miraculous solution had been presented to these pressing issues…it wasn't a wonder that world governments were ready to lay everything down at the feet of their new saviours who in turn promised utopia.

In the course of the past few weeks, talks have gotten somewhere. To a place that he never – in his wildest dreams – hoped would have materialised. And not in a good way.

As the ambassadorial team got closer each day to a resolution, the team dynamics had gotten more strained as the weeks wore on. He'd fought his case with Hammond, and then he'd done it again with his team, his attempts having gotten nowhere.

At that moment, Hammond's quiet voice drifted over the stairwell, derailing the train of his thoughts.

The General and Faxon were already sitting at the table, wrapping up their prior conversation upon SG-1's entrance.

Without conscious thought, Jack brought his body into the ingrained position of military attention. At the corner of his eye, he saw Carter do the same.

"At ease, people. The purpose of the meeting today is to consolidate the various progress reports on the ongoing negotiation with the Aschen. Dr. Jackson, I believe that you have a progress report for us."

Daniel stood and handed out folders to everyone on the table.

"Seeing as the Aschen alliance is well underway, we're now expected to fulfil our part of the treaty before being given full membership and admittance into the Aschen Confederation of planets. What you have in front of you is the beta copy of the USAF press release on the Stargate Program, the personnel files and highlights of significant missions that have been carried out in the course of the past five to six years. It will be officially released when the negotiations have formally ended, and will hopefully go a way to quell all the rumours that will be circulating once the necessary protocols are put in place. Some time following the disclosure of the program, the Stargate will officially be moved to the newly constructed J.R. Reed Space Terminal in Washington, D.C., where its operations will now be under the joint jurisdiction of the official Aschen's Earth delegation and the US government."

"Thank you, Dr. Jackson. Ambassador, is there something that you'd like to add?"

Faxon shifted in his chair, studying his notes for a few seconds, then looked up, first at Sam, then at the rest of his waiting audience. "Negotiations at present concern the development or rather, the enlargement of wide expanses of demilitarised zones will be created in all major continents. The Aschen will also not stand for weapons of any sort; any sort of firearm must be strictly reserved for ceremonial purposes by the time the program is disclosed."

Silence greeted Faxon's statement, a troubled look immediately appearing on Hammond's face, as though the staggering implication of this particular tactical manoeuvring hit him as a blow to the gut.

Not only were they giving up control of the Stargate, the ability to defend themselves was going to be stripped from them.

The resigned mix of disbelief and anger that was gone as soon as it had flashed in Hammond's sharp blue eyes.

Jack couldn't help himself. "Now, that would be a problem, wouldn't it?"

"General, I'm not sure if that's-"

"General Hammond, would that not mean-"

"Jack, I don't think we're quite at that stage yet. So cut back on that paranoia a bit, would you?" Daniel snapped.

Jack had had enough. Enough of the benefits that Daniel had optimistically crowed about, enough of being shut down time and again.

"For cryin' out loud, Daniel! We're giving up the Stargate when it's first and only our frontline defence against the Goa'uld? Giving up the means to defend ourselves? I don't think so, not at this point in time, when we're at war. Not that good a deal."

"With the assistance of the Aschen, the Tau'ri and the Jaffa need not fear a prolonged war with the Goa'uld."

"So we give up everything, then wait for the Aschen to move their asses? How's that a good bargain, Daniel? How would you know they wouldn't leave us as fodder?"

But the archaeologist was pinching the bridge of his nose, his eyes closing briefly in frustration, a hand already raised in objection to what his friend was saying. "Why wouldn't you lis-" he stopped abruptly, deciding to take a more belligerent approach. "Okay, Jack. Let's assume, for a minute that this…this vision of Earth is really too good to be true. And that the Aschen aren't as trustworthy as you say. Now prove it."

"And what would you do if I could?"

"Only if you've got something to show, then perhaps that would change everything. But you don't! Look, Jack, haven't we had this argument many times? If you can only see beyond your doubts that the peace-loving Aschen will provide us the means of defending ourselves successfully against-"

"Sir," Carter interrupted the building argument, "Unfortunately, you might be reading too much into what the Aschen is proposing. The whole point of this is to ensure that we leave Earth's defence in the hands of a more capable race. In fact, Ambassador Faxon has said that-"

"Oh, here we go again."

"Jack, why woul-"

"That's quite enough, people," Hammond interrupted smoothly, "I wouldn't worry unduly yet, people. Ambassador Faxon has spoken to me about this part of the negotiations before the briefing started."

The dulcet tones of Earth's official ambassador cut through the tension that had surfaced in the briefing room. "I assure you, General, that many of the clauses in the alliance treaty are examined and re-examined, and are vigorously debated. Our international negotiation team is fully aware of the repercussions of such a treaty, but will always try to mitigate these negative consequences. We ensure that each country is represented fairly and everyone will indeed receive equal benefits from this alliance."

Typical words, Jack thought, placating and politically correct in their stance towards the treaty.

He wanted to object, to bring the fight to the table, but how the hell could he do this without sounding like a bigoted moron?

"Has there been news of the SGC's future, Sir?" Carter asked.

Hammond sighed and clenched his right fist briefly in consternation. "It is still up for debate. The SGC will be a defunct military installation after the Stargate moves to Washington. In the meantime however, it's been proposed that the SGC will continue its mission to perform reconnaissance, determine threats and making peaceful contact with the alien cultures for at least until the treaty is finalised."

"And when would that be, General?" Daniel asked.

Faxon chose to answer before Hammond could. "We don't know, Dr. Jackson," he admitted. "The process is long and the international coordination quite arduous. But we have a projected deadline of several months to a year to complete these talks."

Months, Jack realised. Just months before Earth crossed the Rubicon. Or a year at maximum before the Stargate became public.

He blinked when Hammond ordered Carter to speak. "Maybe it is a good time to get to your report, Major."

"Yes, Sir."

Sam got up and dimmed the lights, wasting no time in pulling up a distribution chart on the screen.

"The Aschen are promising a rapid, worldwide distribution of their anti-ageing vaccine when the treaty is in place. It will be administered in three stages over the next seven years, each shot promising to reverse the aging process. I've also spoken at length with the Aschen scientific community and their understanding of physics, chemistry and engineering is so far advanced that I can't help but feel overwhelmed myself. They really do intend to share that knowledge and honestly, I think it's amazing."

Despite the tension that had formed over the past months, Jack couldn't help the slight thrill that ran through him as a look of excitement flashed briefly across her features as Carter continued her detailed explanation of some of their biogenetic weapons. He leaned back in his chair, listening carefully to what she was saying.

He didn't doubt her genius, but he questioned her unwavering acceptance of the Aschen.

In this situation, he needed another voice, another discerning pair of eyes to wade through the complications and the consequences. Jack had hoped that Carter would have been that voice, but she'd thrown in her lot with the Aschen early on – and maybe even with Faxon – as readily as the others had, and for that, it had disappointed him.

More than disappointed actually. Infuriated him, exasperated him, if their arguments over the Aschen in the past few months were evidence enough of their opposing opinions.

If only she could step back and just…see it. But she didn't.


	3. Wanting

**Chapter 3 - Wanting**

**Colorado Springs  
April 20, 2001  
1930 hrs**

Was it natural to be nervous before a first date in a long, long while?

Sam checked her hair, then smoothed a hand over her dress, feeling the butterflies that refused to settle in her stomach. It was still cool outside and she figured pants would have been the more sensible option. Yet…it was a date and she wanted to look nice.

It had been nearly four months since she'd seen Joe and had lunch with him in the SGC. They'd only exchanged a few words whenever he was around and preparing to gate to Aschen Prime before he'd actually found the opportunity to ask her to dinner after a particularly long briefing.

She'd agreed without thinking too much, just happy to get away from work for once, convincing herself that it was simply dinner between two friends.

But even that sounded ridiculous to her ears.

_Who are you kidding, Sam? _

No matter how she wished to rationalise it, this dinner was undoubtedly a date. The ambassador had meant it as much when he'd informed her rather publicly of a restaurant in the neighbourhood that beat the Mess hall hands down, the remembrance of which still caused her cheeks to flush a dull red. The knowing looks that were sent silently her way, then to O'Neill's, had been nail-bitingly embarrassing, causing her to be acutely aware of the proximity with which she stood next to the Colonel. Surreptitiously, she'd moved a few paces away, as though the belated gesture would matter.

It was just another baby step in the unending journey of needing to subtly prove there was nothing remotely resembling what the rest of the base assumed took place within that very platonic relationship she had with her CO. Insinuating gossip about her military career had been an unpleasant companion from the very start and the endless speculative looks had followed her up every rank. Each time, she had dealt with it by largely resolutely ignoring these groundless rumours, but in that very instant, she'd felt cornered, felt the strain of their relationship of the past few weeks because of the Colonel's obvious disappointment in the rest of his team.

The ambassador's question had given her a way of proving to that the gossip mill had nothing at all on Jack O'Neill and his second IC. And she'd thoughtlessly pounced on it, answering directly to Faxon's oblique way of asking her on a date.

Was that why she put in all the effort to dress up so carefully, when a casual dinner at a slightly more upmarket pizza place was all that it was going to be? Why had she felt so unsettled as she dressed, feeling as though that there was something very wrong somewhere? Or that the image of the Colonel was always hovering at the edges of her mind even as she tried to think of the evening ahead with Joe?

She'd seen the Colonel's unreadable face when she'd agreed. He'd noticed her subtle withdrawal, despite giving no outward indication that he did. In the perspective only offered by time, she could finally admit to herself that her acceptance of Faxon's invitation had also been spurred on by the desire to provoke a reaction from him.

But O'Neill had showed only what he wanted people to see. Whether jealousy or indifference had lain behind that blank, inscrutable look that she had glimpsed on his face, she hadn't known.

Sam shook her head in self-admonishment, hoping that it was just her over-thinking things again when all it'd meant was a fun, casual night out. She was suddenly free to explore a life again outside her work, and this time, with a man from whom she didn't need to keep classified secrets.

So why was she still torn between wanting to move away from a man whom she trusted with her life but could never hope to get, to another one who was willing, available and wasted no time?

It seemed obvious on paper. But perhaps the innate fragility that lay within these…things…was better handled with care and was more easily pushed aside so it wouldn't be subjected to closer examination.

_Enough of that_, she told herself.

With conscious effort, Sam straightened her posture, grabbed her car keys, her bag and walked out.

The pizza restaurant was getting crowded by the time she reached her destination across town. Joe was already seated, but he stood up when she arrived, his immaculate manners drawing a smile of appreciation from her. They placed their orders after he seated her in a quiet corner, the meal beginning more smoothly than she'd expected it to go perhaps because of how easy Joe had made it for her.

Sam found herself enjoying the intellectual company even if their conversation hadn't revolved around the finer points of wormhole physics. Above all, Joe was polished and articulate, saying what he wanted to say with such calm eloquence that she couldn't help but be drawn to his fluent discourse on the ongoing treaty. He'd picked up on her excitement, fed it with possibilities of his own, and drew out a future so painfully bright for all of them that she couldn't help but be enraptured by that particular vision he'd painted.

Joe had understood her enthusiasm, she thought, perhaps even shared it.

It was a sentiment so sorely lacking in the Colonel.

_The Colonel? _

Dimly, Sam realised that her thoughts had strayed. It took an effort to swing her attention back to what Joe was saying, but she was determined that Joe would get her undivided her attention for the remainder of their meal.

It was undeniable that he was great to talk to. They chatted briefly about their families more openly than she'd ever remembered doing; he told her about his fussy, aristocratic mother and his rowdy, younger siblings who disobeyed her at every opportunity they got and she in turn, recounted the tales of moving around the country as an Air Force brat. The camaraderie between them was evident, the chemistry present. He was a fairly good-looking man and was, above all, fantastic company who didn't seem to have that much baggage.

Uncomplicated. Easy.

_In contrast to the Colonel. _

And there it was again, that forbidden thought of the Colonel being in Joe Faxon's stead, where it was _he_ who shared a meal with her and _he_ who talked about his family.

The thought stopped her short, making her grimace inwardly. That was a joke. Nothing other than a feverish conjuring of what she projected O'Neill to be. Because there was no one who carried more baggage than an divorced man who thought himself responsible for the death of his son, who spent months in a hellhole in Iraq and lived through the countless horrors of wars.

The Colonel. _Jack_. It was his name, wasn't it? Why couldn't she even say it aloud?

Because nothing was easy when it came to him.

She couldn't stop thinking of the Colonel, she now realised with certainty, even as she sat at a table dining with another man.

Despite all the heated arguments they had about the Aschen in the past couple of weeks, his opinions about the negotiations actually revealed more of his intelligence and eloquence than he'd cared to demonstrate. So seldom were they pitched on opposite sides – the hand-to-hand combat practice training on the SGC's gym mat notwithstanding – and for once, she was forced to admit the Colonel had held his own with understated aplomb. For once he hadn't cowered under some of the technobabble she'd spouted; he'd actually turned her arguments on its head, presented them back to her in a form she hadn't recognised and had forced her to examine her blinding enthusiasm a lot more carefully. In fact, it had been downright shocking to see him unwittingly show a nuanced understanding of the issues with which they were dealing.

She had always known that the Colonel was sharply intelligent, and his quick-thinking ways were always hidden beneath a dumber-than-rocks veneer that infuriated Hammond and the team more often than not. But it was the shadow that always lingered behind his eyes that hinted at how deep this man's convictions and passions really ran. Coupled with his rugged good looks, it was – if she were honest enough with herself – beyond attractive.

It was why she'd withdrawn after their Za'tarc confessions to make clear the parameters of their relationship, glad at first that he'd respected that when her feelings had become a bit too hot too handle.

But how much of an epiphany really was this? Sam had known that she was in trouble when he'd been stranded on Edora, and the Za'tarc incident had merely proved what she thought she'd felt. And the dinner with Joe was simply another reminder that she was a long way from getting over what should have been a mere, simple infatuation.

Nevertheless, everything with the Colonel beyond work-related things either remained uncomfortably shrouded in nebula gas or tended to head for a dead end.

Her earlier mood suddenly dissipating, Sam made mention of needing an early night in preparation of another long shift the next day. She'd expected Joe to gently protest, but he had called for the bill immediately, his grace in accepting her reason point-blank leaving her feeling rather ashamed of the unfocused thoughts that ran rampant through her mind.

They walked out of the restaurant with her arm loosely tucked in his, the chilly air making her suck in a deep breath of appreciation. Not for the first time, she cursed herself for wearing heels as they dug into the uneven ground. Having been so long accustomed to the heavy surety of combat boots, these dainty but irritating shoes made her footing unsure. It was a merely a matter of time before the high heel of her right shoe caught in a deep groove in the concrete pavement. And happened it did just as she'd expected; in that split second of panic, she knew she was going to tumble on her ass because she'd just leaned a bit too much out of her own centre of gravity.

A firm hand clamped around her upper arm and pulled her upright against a solid body. Without warning, she found herself the recipient of a very affectionate and ardent hug, then of a chaste, tentative kiss on her lips.

It was a fleeting, yet intimate touch that made her wonder all over again why she hesitated, why she drew back. Fighting the urge to step away, she held herself slack in the circle of Joe's arms and tried to smile.

"Words can't begin to describe how much I enjoyed your company," he began earnestly. "Say you'll make me a very happy man by agreeing to dinner again the next time I'm in town, which is, oh, next week?"

It hadn't been an unexpected question. She'd made no attempt to disguise how much of a good time she'd had, and Joe had, unsurprisingly, noticed her interest.

Sam exhaled slowly and tried to banish the image of O'Neill in her mind. A small, niggly part, however, suggested that she attempted something that resembled a life with another man. "I'll call you about it," she promised, deflecting the question with a more indirect answer.

His warm eyes lit with pleasure, his happiness evident at her response that he'd already interpreted as consent. "Come on, I'll see you back."

The look of exhilaration on his face sent a dead weight straight into her gut. What had she gotten herself into? And what the hell was she even thinking?

* * *

**Colorado Springs  
April 20, 2001  
2145 hrs**

Was there a huge party in town that he didn't know about?

In his quest for more bottles of Guinness on a Friday night, Jack found himself convenience store hopping after finding that all the ones he'd driven to were flat out of his favourite brand.

Three down. And out. Hopefully this was going to be the last stop on the yellow brick road that had led him to a seldom-visited part of Colorado Springs.

It was a pathetic, Friday night activity, but it was also one of those rare, quiet ones where he had the opportunity to just put his feet up and study the stars on the rooftop deck with his beverage of choice.

Seeing the red-and-white lights of the store appear in the distance, Jack turned at a main junction into a minor road and parked around the corner leisurely. Finally we're here, he thought as he made his way down towards his destination.

A couple emerging from an Italian restaurant at the end of the street gave him pause. He was about to turn his eyes away when he caught a glint of short blond hair and a swish of red fabric.

Was it…_Carter_?

Another glance told him that it _was_ Carter he was looking at. Dressed beautifully to the nines.

And she took his breath away.

But was she doing?

His mind raced to catch up what his heart already knew.

It was Carter _on a date_ and in an intimate hug with another man…who looked to be none other than Faxon.

Jack's stomach lurched at the sight but he kept on staring in dreaded fascination, unable to look away, as Faxon bent his head and kissed her briefly on the lips.

Only then did he realise he knew what it felt like to be in the path of a speeding train. The shock and pain slammed into him like a hard punch in the gut, making him involuntarily stumble back a step. His breath was stolen from him; the only thing that held him upright was the brick wall of the building he stood next to. In his confused, muddled state, he initially, hazily wondered why she was out in the restaurant with Faxon. Then remembrance of Faxon's obvious interest flooded back…as well as Carter's apparent reciprocal gestures.

_Why was Carter and Faxon together? How…how had it all happened? _

Carter and Faxon were walking away from the restaurant slowly, turned vaguely somewhere in his direction, her arm still clasped tightly in his.

Jack took a strangled breath even as a part of him scrambled for answers to questions he couldn't even properly form. All he could think of was to give in to the primal urge to flee, to hide so that she wouldn't see him coming down the street, in order to spare the both of them the awkwardness of a chance meeting when another man had his arms around her shoulders. He could face a battalion of Jaffa soldiers in the heat of battle but this…_god_…even he wasn't brave a man enough for this.

He needed distance from the paralysing sight.

Now. He willed his legs to move, told himself to breathe.

The search for beer forgotten, Jack turned and made his unsteady way back to the truck, driven by the urge to get somewhere else…somewhere far away from the intimate scene he'd just witnessed which had merely served to augment his shock, resentment, and jealousy.

Caught up in the haze of anger and misery, he didn't notice when the blond woman turned her head in his direction, a frown of confusion appearing on her face when she saw his retreating back. She stood frozen for a second before she allowed her companion to gently steer her towards his car parked on another street.

Jack's wooden feet took him back to where his truck was parked. Thankful he was well-hidden in the dark alley, he climbed in and sank heavily down into the seat. Pulling himself together, Jack took a deep breath. Again. And again, plastering his hands to the steering despite their traitorous shaking as his tortured mind seared the images of the kissing couple permanently into his head.

Still he willed himself to calm. Until the distant roar in his ears had faded to nothing and the thudding in his chest had slowed.

As he pulled away from the curb using another side road that ensured he stayed out of their sight, only then did the true force of his emotions come to the fore, their intensity shaking him the way a leaf trembled in a strong gust of wind.

The years had taught him – and taught him well – to bury his feelings beyond recognition and live in denial. It was an old trick he thought he'd mastered and initially, it was one that was helped by Carter's suggestion to leave everything in a room too small to even contain the depth of what he knew he was beginning to feel. Without saying much, he knew her career and her professional standing meant the world to her. Badges of honour that she'd attained all these years without the trappings of clandestine dalliances or dishonest dealings in the USAF. Why should she start with him?

Carter had made it crystal clear, had called time on everything that he thought was burgeoning between them months ago, all of which that had been summed up in a damning, single phrase.

He had respected her wishes, even welcoming the opportunity to bolster another layer of concrete over the wide gulf that he knew still separated the both of them, when he hadn't been quite that ready to examine his feelings too closely when they'd surfaced during that particularly trying incident with a damned alien lie-detector. But he'd also, erroneously, it seemed, interpreted her statement as one that begged time, time to think things through, time to sort out what she really wanted.

And if were the case, then apparently she had done so. Seeing her with Faxon was a clear signal that she'd chosen a direction away from…the potential of _them._

Jack's ambivalent feelings about Carter and Faxon solidified into a mixture of anger and resignation. Her determination to move on seemed to broadcast her willingness to do anything to get out of an awkward situation that involved him and her…and straight into another man's polished efforts at wooing.

He certainly got the hint, despite what everyone thought about him.

Sighing audibly, Jack numbly moved on automatic, steering the truck through streets he hadn't known he'd taken and into cul-de-sac where his solitary house stood. He'd been a fool to think that they shared something special, despite what he thought they'd both confessed to in that room under the threat of death. On the other hand, Carter's interest had been painfully obvious when it came to Faxon; the only conclusion he could draw was that he'd been hopelessly mistaken when it came to the depth of her feelings.

He let himself in and sank down on the couch with a decanter of whisky, desperate for the anaesthetising respite it offered. Lifting the glass to his lips with a hand that couldn't seem to stop trembling, he was suddenly assaulted with the memory of the day he'd found himself on the opposite side of a force shield staring at her in dawning realisation and wordless dread.

With a growl, Jack squeezed his eyes against the unwelcome memory, tightened his grip on the flask and raised his arm.

Heavy glass met hard wood in the next second and shattered into a thousand silvers on the floor, the golden liquid rapidly spreading on the off-white carpet.

He'd be paying through his nose later when the cleaning service came. But he couldn't quite bring himself to give a shit at the moment.

Jack dropped his head into his hands, wondering how things had gone so fucking wrong, or why Carter did what she did. Maybe it had simply meant that Carter hadn't thought that an idea of _them_ was worth it. Worth waiting for. Worth exploring.

Or maybe she thought _he_ just wasn't worth it as anything more than a CO who commanded her respect.

It wasn't as though he'd complacently assumed Carter's place was perpetually by his side despite the lack of words between them. But still, the idea of Carter with someone else hadn't been so real, so tangible until she'd stood in another man's embrace.

Whatever it was, no matter how he tried to look at things, Carter had made her point loud and clear.

And it hurt too goddamned much.

_You stupid, pining bastard, O'Neill_, he cynically thought. _You would have found out sooner or later anyway. Best you do it now, deal with it and not do anything dumb_.

Still, he just wished that he didn't have to stumble into a classic movie scene where the man kissed the woman in question after rescuing her from a mishap.

With a shaky breath, Jack knew there and then that he too, needed to move on just as she'd done so effortlessly. Otherwise, the tortuous image of Carter kissing Faxon – _the sheer idea of Carter with another man_ – would just flay him raw.

It was time to go do something different, he thought in desperate need.

The change in perspective would do him good, would help him focus on what really, _really_ mattered. He'd re-centre himself and in the process, hopefully ditch whatever he'd thought he knew about Carter.

The blind state of turmoil made him latch onto the very thing that had eventually led Carter into another man's arms.

The Earth-Aschen alliance.

That alone had carved a neat split between him and his team in the recent weeks, the playful banter all but disappearing between them. Their missions through the Stargate were getting fewer and fewer as Carter and Daniel were called to frequently lend their expertise in the negotiations. Teal'c had chosen from time to time, to loan himself out to the other SG-teams that were still performing reconnaissance and the lull in activity had given him longer periods of leave to visit his family.

When it once had been unthinkable, it now appeared as though it was a matter of time before the team – and the SGC – was no more.

Forcibly pushing all thoughts of Carter out of his mind, Jack set to work on a plan.

In an earlier argument, Daniel had essentially told him that the burden of proof lay on him.

There was just one more thing he could try. Without the rest of SG-1.

And he prayed that it would work.


	4. Escape

**Chapter 4 - Escape**

**SGC  
Colorado Springs  
April 21, 2001**

A glance at the small, silver digital clock sitting in the corner of his desk told Hammond that dinner time had come and gone, but still, he hadn't left his post for a quick bite in the commissary. A General's work on the frontlines was never done, but he was currently enjoying the strange quiet of the base on this Saturday evening a little too much to head out of his office.

Many teams were still off-world, while others had the weekend off. As had the whole of SG-1.

A knock on his closed office door roused Hammond out of his detailed perusal of the paperwork that sat as an impossibly large pile on his desk.

"Come."

Briefly, he saw his second IC standing at the threshold, hands stuffed into his BDU pockets with a slight slouch to his posture, wearing a contemplative expression so uncharacteristic of the normally-confident Jack O'Neill. But before he could blink, O'Neill had straightened up and walked into his office.

Hammond leaned back in his seat in surprise. "Colonel, I wasn't expecting you. What can I do for you?"

"Sir, I'd like to request some time off SG-1," O'Neill started out formally, then hurried on with his explanation before Hammond could get a word in edgewise, "because I'm hoping to take another recon team through to the rest of the Confederation planets in order to present a more thorough risk analysis to the committees involved in the negotiating process of the Earth-Aschen alliance. And if you approve, I'd like to depart as soon as possible after choosing my team."

That was hell of a statement, Hammond thought speculatively as he took in the unusual sight. Gone was the usual levity in O'Neill's manner; in its place was a seldom seen seriousness that unintentionally revealed the sharp intelligence behind the asinine front. Quelling his first instincts to refuse the Colonel, he stilled and considered O'Neill's unusual and intriguing request.

He'd had Jack being a constant pain in the ass over the past four months when it became clear that the Aschen alliance was going to drastically change Earth's future. More than that, the Colonel had actually been a cautionary voice advising prudence and discretion when his team had gone off the other end.

Hammond understood his second IC's reservations, but he hadn't hesitated to reiterate that they both had their hands tied among the big wigs. Yet that hadn't stopped the Colonel's astute and penetrating questions from coming, all of which had deeply unseated him more than he'd liked.

_What if the Aschen broke the treaty midway? What were the consequences of breaking the clauses of the agreement? Hadn't it occurred to anyone that the socio-economic consequences of the treaty would affect the developed world and the developing world differently? Are we prepared to deal with the fallout, should that happen? _

There just weren't any answers to them.

Hammond couldn't predict the future, but Jack had certainly pinned down his own yet-unarticulated misgivings. And O'Neill's arguments were actually sound; they'd forced him to acknowledge the blind spots inherent in the absolute trust that the governments were placing in the Aschen and the security risks that Earth would face in the next few years.

With a frown, Hammond knew that O'Neill's instincts hadn't been wrong in all the times he'd thrown caution to the wind, the results of which typically meant that they all lived to see another day. SG-1's records of saving the world many times over was proof enough of Colonel O'Neill's capable leadership and his damn fine field instincts.

The implication of the Colonel's request needed no further explanation. He was proposing a discreet background check on the Aschen, a covert reconnaissance in order to obtain an additional portfolio of information that they still lacked.

Hammond looked briefly down at his stack of reports, then back up at Jack. "I'm listening, Jack."

"Sir?" Clearly O'Neill hadn't expected that quick a concession from him.

An odd smile crossed Hammond's face. He'd understood the veiled warning in O'Neill's request from the onset: do it while they still could, while the use of the Stargate still fell under military jurisdiction.

"I suppose you have a plan for this?" He regarded the younger man steadily.

The harsh lines in the Colonel's face faded somewhat as he relaxed and placed a folder on Hammond's table. "The Confederation consists of seventeen worlds in total and the SG teams have only visited about half of these, Sir. The Aschen don't always visit these worlds, preferring the use of their agricultural transporters to move people and produce about. At least according to what Borren had said before. As for the team, I was thinking of forming a four-member team. All of whom preferably trained in either security forces or in covert ops with experience in reconnaissance and espionage, who will do what they have been trained to do on these worlds. Who are also," he hesitated, "preferably military-trained personnel with a background in the social sciences and are at least versed in some cultural studies."

The Colonel hadn't once mentioned his own team, a significant omission that Hammond picked up immediately.

"As a measure of goodwill, the Aschen has provided us with a list of planets that have formed an alliance with them, all of which seem to be in a particular cluster that can be reached by gating from a planet to another without the need to compensate for stellar drift. I have put in a recommendation for the team to gate directly to P3W-225, then later to the neighbouring planets in the vicinity. Based on discretion and the number of leads, we will stay for a few days on each world or on my recommendation, then repeat the process with two or three other worlds before we send a discreet report back to the SGC," O'Neill continued. "We do this until we're satisfied that the Aschen have really taken the interests of Earth into consideration."

"And what will your official reason be for visiting these places?"

Jack found himself smoothly repeating Daniel's oft-used lines each time they did a routine meet-and-greet. "That we are peaceful explorers about to enter the Confederation. That…it's always good to know your neighbours."

With narrowed eyes, Hammond took a hard look at the Colonel. "Have you thought this through carefully, Colonel? Has it occurred to you that you're requesting a long-term assignment away?"

O'Neill exhaled visibly. "Yes, Sir. On both counts, Sir."

Hammond considered the idea. Would it work then? Would it give them sufficient time to uncover the Aschen's dealings – if there were any – before the official Stargate documents went to the press?

He said carefully, "Sounds like SG-1's still your perfect match. Why don't you take your own team? Granted, Dr. Jackson isn't military trained, but I know he never fails to be an asset to the team every time."

Hammond barely caught the flicker of emotion that crossed the O'Neill's face. But the detailed, rehearsed answers made him wonder just how long O'Neill had spent fashioning this plan on his own.

"It wouldn't be a good idea, Sir. Daniel's overseeing the cultural exchange portion in the diplomatic process, and Carter's also busy with the Aschen science and engineering departments."

"And Teal'c?"

"Sir?"

Hammond sighed. Seeing the Colonel without SG-1 was just…wrong. And vice-versa. And he feared that the formidable team that had given the Goa'uld a run for their money, the one that he'd placed so much faith in during times of crises, was heading for breaking point.

But not yet. It was a hope to which Hammond stubbornly clung. And until that day came, he was determined that SG-1 would stick it out together. Unfortunately, the Colonel had other ideas, and this time, when the fate of the world hung again in the balance, he knew he couldn't fault Jack for wanting to do this on his own. Not when the rest of his teammates hadn't seen what he thought he saw.

He ran a hand over his head – a habit he hadn't quite broken even after the hair had gone – and grimaced. Team dynamics were always one of the trickiest facets of commanding a base. A team as unorthodox as SG-1 nevertheless had the strongest bond he'd ever seen in his years in the USAF, their personalities fitting like a jigsaw puzzle that wasn't even supposed to exist. Ordering Jack to take SG-1 could have solved his team personnel issues there and then. But Hammond knew that by doing so, he risked the fissure that ran through their already-volatile interactions turning into a permanent split of his premier team.

Hammond was well aware of the tension that stood between the Colonel and the rest of his team in this contentious issue and SG-1 would only be a hindrance to the way Jack worked when it came to this assignment. The dissent that he would have faced from Daniel Jackson would be an extra impediment that he didn't need right now. And if he guessed correctly, the ambassador's obvious interest in Major Samantha Carter and her seeming reciprocal actions had probably been a hard hit for the Colonel. If what stood between the team was a rift, there was a gaping hole where the once-solid relationship between O'Neill and Carter had existed.

All of these suddenly seemed too large, too insurmountable to mend.

The need for distance was what Jack was indirectly asking for. If that was going to enable him to do his job and help Earth in the process, Hammond wasn't going to say no.

"Off the record, Jack," he changed tack and asked more gently, "Does this decision have anything to do with the recent dynamics in SG-1? Or…" he grimaced, the distaste for base gossip clear on his face, "-with Major Carter?"

The younger man's face remained impassive. "SG-1 is a good team and Major Carter's an important member of my team, Sir. I believe Carter and Daniel be a greater asset to the proceedings here."

The answer was again, too practiced, too careful. Too…dutiful. The Colonel had neatly sidestepped his direct question and if he wanted to know more, he'd have to order O'Neill to talk. But that would be unfair to a man who already carried many things on his shoulders.

Hammond sighed, not bothering to hide his rising irritation, suspecting not for the first time, that Jack had never taken it easy on all of his commanding officers.

"I hope you know what the hell you're trying to do, Jack."

Hammond saw O'Neill's eyes soften slightly. "I'd like to leave as soon as possible, Sir. In fact, I'd like to recommend some names for the other two members."

The statement made him raise his eyebrows. "You've certainly given this a lot of thought. Go ahead."

"Major Louis Ferretti, Lieutenant Colonel Dave Dixon and Major Kevin Turner. I need men who can fully understand where I'm coming from and those whom I can inherently trust with my life."

But Hammond was already shaking his head in refusal.

"Teal'c will be part of your team, so I will only need to reassign two more soldiers for your covert mission. Colonel Dixon is still needed here. And if I'm going to approve whatever you're going to do, this condition is non-negotiable, Colonel. I also want a report after you finish your assignment on each planet. Take Ferretti and Turner with you. And that's final, Jack."

O'Neill's jaw tightened. But he'd not objected. "Yes, Sir."

"I will put SG-1 on stand down for the duration of the period you are off-world. Administratively, this works. Dr. Jackson and Major Carter have individually asked me for some time to pursue scientific projects that are supposed to facilitate the process of the alliance."

It was one of Hammond's many compromises that he'd made over the years. Some he'd come to regret and others that he didn't. Now he hoped to god that this covert operation he'd all but approved wasn't going to be classed as a disaster.

"All's well that ends well then. Thank you, Sir," O'Neill replied laconically, without a hint of emotion behind his words.

But Hammond knew better. "Don't thank me yet until this is all over," he warned the Colonel. "One last time, son, are you sure about this?"

A slight tilt finally appeared on the side of O'Neill's mouth. "No, Sir, but it has to be done."

Hammond nodded in grim acceptance. "That's good enough for me, Colonel. Dismissed."

O'Neill nodded once, squared his shoulders and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

Suddenly the door opened again, and O'Neill stuck his head in. "Sir, I know it's a while before the Stargate goes public. But things might change anytime. So if you could, Sir, try to keep the Stargate under the mountain for as long as you can? I'd hate to be gating into a roomful of suits in Washington."

That man was asking the impossible, Hammond thought.

Then he gave O'Neill a curt nod. Only when the door closed for the second time did Hammond did throw his pen aside, closing his eyes briefly in consternation as he heaved another heavy sigh.

* * *

The locker room was empty at that hour, Ferretti and Turner having already departed for the armoury. Jack was slamming his locker door shut when Teal'c came in.

"At what hour do we depart, O'Neill?"

"Actually, in twenty minutes," he replied, his back still to the imposing Jaffa, as he shrugged the jacket over his shoulders.

The big guy came over to his locker, hands clasped behind his back.

"I have been given my orders by General Hammond to be part of a reconnaissance team led by you to the Confederation planets."

Jack ignored what he thought was mild censure in the Jaffa's tone, concentrating on dressing instead.

Shoes. Shoe-laces. Cap.

Finally, he conceded. "You heard that right. And it's a last-minute thing."

"Indeed. Was it your intention all along that Daniel Jackson and Major Carter remain uninformed of our whereabouts?"

The genuine puzzlement in Teal'c question stayed his hand but Jack just wasn't in the mood for an interrogation, whether intentionally or not.

"Look, T," he sighed tiredly and twisted the cap on his head minutely left. "I understand your misgivings with what we're going to be doing. And I guessing you'd rather not go without the rest of the team. But that's Hammond's choice, you've got to know that."

A slight crease appeared in the Jaffa's forehead and as Jack sought to make his way to the door, Teal'c placed a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"O'Neill, I swore my loyalty to you and your world a long time ago in the war against the Goa'uld. But the Goa'uld are but one enemy in the galaxy," Teal'c stated firmly. "You have long justified my decision to leave the service of Apophis on Chulak. I may not agree with your assessment of the Aschen but if this mission requires my presence and the need to suspend my disbelief, you may be assured of it."

It was startling and foreign to hear Teal'c open and long proclamation of allegiance, particularly after those past, bitter weeks. Jack paused, letting the reassuring words wash over him, then nodded his acceptance. "Thanks, T," he said softly and clapped the Jaffa on the back. "C'mon, it's time to go."

They emerged in the gate room just as the sixth chevron locked.

"Sir."

"Turner."

"Nice of you to join us, Colonel," Ferretti smirked at them. "Just like the good ol' days, eh, Sir?"

The teasing was borderline insubordinate in its implications. Jack recognised it too well; it was the same type of insolence that peppered his own speech. He snorted in amusement. He was going to have his hands full with this team. And strangely, away from SG-1, he was already feeling more light-hearted than he had in a while.

Hammond's voice rang through the speakers in the control room. "Alright, the four of you. You have a go and godspeed."

"Alright," Jack ordered. "Move out."

* * *

**SGC  
Colorado Springs  
April 22, 2001**

Anger made his strides jerkier but faster. Without heed of the airmen ambling along the corridor, Daniel forced his way past the hindrances up to the floor that that housed Sam's lab, barrelling inside to see his friend bent over a thick folder.

"Daniel?"

He couldn't hold still, his pacing accompanied by gestures that broadcasted his agitation and perplexity.

"Sam, I don't believe this. Tell me that he didn't just do this. Tell me he didn't take Teal'c with him and just…disappeared off to do something he hadn't bothered to even talk to us about."

Bowing her head for a moment, she wondered what she could say to Daniel, when the same mix of emotions swirled in her. It was easy to see the anger, the hurt that he wore openly on his face, perhaps because it was also mirrored on hers.

But what could she say to him that didn't just echo his outraged disbelief?

Daniel was more than upset, betrayed even. She recognised the restless paces, the dramatic flurry of movements that were uniquely him. "I don't know anymore than you do, Daniel," she told him honestly and then, more softly, "We haven't exactly been supportive or communicative of late.

His frustrated pacing stopped and he came to the side of her bench, leaning his arms across the table in a posture so unconsciously reminiscent of the Colonel's casual forward lounge that it made her heart leap to her throat. She pursed her lips, biting back the irrational surge of anger and longing that coursed through her of O'Neill's sudden change of plans.

"Sam," he implored, "You've been talking to Jack about the Aschen alliance in the past few months. Do you think this has anything to do with it?"

"The General merely said it was classified."

Scorn and disdain coloured his next words. "Classified? Jack's doing more classified stuff in a classified program? You know, I've always thought we were a team. If it's something off-world, why wouldn't he tell us? Why wouldn't SG-1 be going with him? And for Jack to do this with another team just…feels…wrong."

"We haven't been much of a team lately, if you've noticed," she pointed out with no small amount of consternation. "And do you remember the time he was forced to go undercover and needed to publicly turned his back on us? I'm sure he has his reasons for doing something like this again, Daniel."

It was a half-hearted attempt to placate her friend, and to convince herself that the Colonel seldom did what he did because it was necessary.

She should have known Daniel would see through it in a heartbeat.

"Don't give me that, Sam. That's military talk. You know that as well as I do."

Sam opened her mouth to retort, then shut it again. Daniel had made his point. And the truth was, she hadn't known why the Colonel had taken off in such a hurry before even informing the other half of his team. But she certainly hadn't expected it to feel like a betrayal.

Taking a breath, she latched onto the first thing that Hammond had told them in the briefing. "General Hammond did say that the Colonel will be reporting every week to him about his mission, in person if possible. And if he does, we'll see him then. It's not like he's gone with no contact."

A pained look descended on Daniel's face as though he'd realised something too late. Why had Jack been so strongly opposed to a race who seemed to want peace as much as they did? And why had he gotten angry with them for wanting the same thing so badly? But had it really been them who had pushed him off the proverbial edge to seek another team?

"Had…things between us really become that bad?"

In all honesty, perhaps the answer was a resounding 'yes'. "Well," she started out slowly, "it might be more than that. But I'm not going to speculate, Daniel. The Colonel's doing his job somewhere out there and for now, it isn't our concern. And we're going to be busy with different aspects of the Aschen alliance and that's our job for now."

Daniel knew a deflection when he saw one. Then he looked carefully at the woman who stiffly stood before him at the bench of her lab with a posture that looked…defeated.

"Okay," he conceded, nodding once. "But we're not finished with this." With a shake of his head and a last, sharp, speculative look at her, he stalked out of her lab.

Sam waved him a short goodbye and turned to face her computer screen after a slow exhale. But her concentration was bust. Only when she found herself reading the same line of the report for the seventh time did she look away and bury her head in her hands, drawn back into the memory of last night.

She'd made a show of driving off when she refused Joe's ride home, only to end up in a deserted playground near the Colonel's place at a late hour. She'd sat on a bench for a few minutes, thinking back on everything.

Why Sam found herself in the Colonel's vicinity was something that she couldn't yet articulate aloud. From her vantage point, darkness had shrouded his empty house and his truck wasn't parked anywhere in sight. Clearly he wasn't in…but just how coincidental would it be had he really been where she was at the restaurant? Was it then his rapidly-retreating figure that she thought she'd glimpsed in the distance as she and Joe had exited the restaurant?

The thought of him having witnessed Joe's goodbye made her stomach turn on itself.

But surely he hadn't? Or had he? That moment was too short, too forgettable and what irony it would be had he actually caught sight of it.

Sam shook her head, knowing it was an extrapolation too far. One that bordered on the ridiculous.

Was it?

Conflicted, she knew that duty had made them choose service over their personal lives a long time ago. He was, above all, a man forbidden to her. And it went both ways. Above all, the Colonel wasn't a man who ran because of a small thing such as this – _if it had even happened_, she reminded herself.

_Really?_ A chiding voice resembling Daniel's rose in her head. _Then why are you trying to talk yourself out of your own growing worry?_

The Colonel's last outburst in the briefing room ten days ago hadn't gone unnoticed. She'd never seen him parry and thrust with such ferocity, the tense arguments of the past few weeks having taken a toll on his fraying patience. The thought that he'd lost his trust in them sent her stomach into an unexplainable knot. And the thought of him out there without her watching his six, without SG-1 intact, was harder than she'd cared to admit.


	5. Doubt

_A/N: Sorry to disappoint, folks, but the UST will continue for a bit. But I'll say that there's no cause for panic on the shipping front. Resolution will come, but it'll just be a while._

* * *

**Chapter 5 - Doubt**

**P3W-225  
April 23, 2001**

They gated right into the middle of a field that appeared to be part of an agricultural commune.

To the left, a narrow, worn dirt track led up an incline of grassland dotted with yellow wildflowers, then wound up an earthwork in the distance that looked like a massive hill-fort encircled by concentric ditches that closely followed the elevated landscape's natural contours.

Jack blinked once in the strong sunlight that beat down on his back as the Stargate blinked out behind him, then watched his men trying to re-orientate re-molecularised selves as quickly as they could in the sudden warmth.

Kansas. That was his first thought. They haven't left Kansas.

From his past visits to a handful of these planets in the Confederation, the main village tended to be at least a click away from the gate, its surrounding hamlets scattered in a star-shaped pattern within a ten-kilometre radius.

"Okay, boys, time for a walkabout," Jack announced casually and motioned to Ferretti to take point. "And keep your weapons out of sight the moment we catch see something or someone. Remember we're supposed to be friendlies."

Something he never thought he'd say.

"Aye, Sir."

"Yes, Sir."

They made their way down the path as the wind started to pick up, pushing against their backs with the distinct coolness of early spring. Slowly, Jack felt able to breathe again, now that they were well away from the suddenly suffocating hold of the SGC's four walls. The wide expanse of space permitted him to think freely, without the hindrance of nightmarish images of Carter and Faxon that had incessantly flooded his mind from three days ago. He inhaled slowly, catching the raw fragrance of the grass that whipped in the wind and finally allowed the tension seep from his body.

A thunderous rumble sounded, directly above them. The four hoisted their weapons at the ready without second thought, aiming their P-90s towards the sky.

"What the hell's that noise?" A wide-eyed Turner yelled above the din as he steadied his step.

The craft glided cumbersomely through the air, moving southwest of the gate, its accompanying noise slowly dissipating into the wind as it became a mere speck in the sky.

"It is an Aschen harvester," Teal'c said calmly. "The Aschen has provided hundreds of them all over the Confederation planets. When a field is ready, the machine harvests the crop, and then brings it to the Stargate for transport to Aschen Prime."

Ferretti lifted his binoculars and stopped short. "Colonel, I see something."

From a distant copse of trees, a pair of chatting farmers emerged into the open field, carrying leather-satchels that were swung casually over their backs.

Jack didn't hesitate. "Follow them. They'll lead us to their village."

The uphill climb took nearly two hours, after which a cluster of round huts constructed of stone and timber materialised around the bend of a small stream of water that ran from somewhere deep inside the village.

The sounds of civilisation beckoned.

With a quick nod to the rest, Jack took point and strode past the palisade, through the recessed gate.

The entrance of strange men clad in olive get-ups halted all village activity, a common phenomenon that SG-1 had caused too often when they inserted themselves into a villager's typical day on a foreign planet.

He fought the urge to grin at seeing the identical looks of astonishment and disbelief on many faces.

But the usual meet-and-greet process with the ginger-bearded head of the village named Connall – despite the halting interaction and conversation – hadn't been as difficult as he had expected, especially after the leader learnt of Earth's pending acceptance into the Aschen Confederation. Even without Daniel's diplomatic cajoles that tended to keep both sides on an even keel, the situation hadn't gone from bad to worse as in ten seconds it'd always tended to be with SG-1.

Connall's effusive welcome extended to his provision of accommodation for their rarely seen visitors. A burst of rapid-fire sentences from him and they were marched to their temporary quarters in an oval-shaped house that stood at the lonely periphery of the settlement, accompanied by a chattering man whom he assumed was Connall's son.

But he could work with that, a welcome being always better than a skirmish.

A glance at his watch told him there was sufficient time for reconnaissance before the great feast tonight that Connall had ordered in celebration of their arrival. Absently, Jack ran a hand down the animal skins that divided the living spaces, watching his team uncertainly thank the enthusiastic boy.

Once they were left alone, he signalled Ferretti and Turner. "Take a perimeter walk around the hill, observe as much as you can, study the way of life of these people. Don't give your weapons away. Report back in two hours."

"Yes, Sir."

Then he turned to Teal'c who silently awaited his orders. "Want to take a walk in the village?"

"I am ready, O'Neill," the Jaffa replied calmly and crossed the hearth to the doorway.

* * *

The feast that night was held in a large, feasting hall that looked to be at least fifty feet in diameter and by the time they were led to sit down on animal furs that covered the hard, packed-mud floor of the interior, the party was in full swing.

Women wearing heavy fabric of skirts whisked by and placed drinking horns of mead in their hands.

Jack accepted his drink with a slight, polite smile and ignored the sultry look sent his way by a dark-haired, green-eyed young woman dressed prettily in bronze, wool and leather. To his amusement, Ferretti hadn't held up that well, his gaze helplessly following another server who swished her skirts after she turned away from him. He took stock of what was happening around him, vaguely recognising Bréanainn the self-proclaimed bard sitting in the centre of a group of men and women in the firelight, the cadence of his voice rising and falling as he recounted the creation tales of the Keltia.

Verlamion, as Jack had learned from the earlier recon, was the name of the fortified settlement that sat atop one of a chain of hills that linked the large landmass to the ice continent in the far South. The Keltia, its people, were a healthy mix of farmers and craftsmen, their combined produce of high-quality artefacts and grain providing them a substantial income from trading with Aschen Prime and with the rest of the Confederation worlds. As Turner had suggested in his earlier report, they'd in all likelihood, stumbled across a world with a strong connection to the Iron-Age Celts.

But something else nagged at him.

In their earlier perusal of the village, Jack and Teal'c hadn't found anything that remotely hinted at the presence of the warrior class. Instead, the Keltians led simple lives, eking out a rural, routine existence that had long adapted to the gentle changing of the seasons in contrast to the violent history of the Celts on Earth. Any attempt to engage in conversation about this particular facet of their society was simply met with bewilderment and confusion by most people, rather than defensiveness and anger.

Teal'c had remained unperturbed, stating that society here must have obviously evolved along a different pathway than its counterpart on Earth.

The sceptic in Jack had argued the contrary. They'd greeted several villagers who had lost their earlier inhibitions, extending invitations into their homes. In the name of politeness, he and Teal'c had gone in briefly to greet the rest of their family members and stayed long enough to observe the ornately decorated cast-bronze and iron weaponry that hung as display pieces from the walls.

Decoration, they'd said; their people had artistic skills running through their blood.

But Jack wasn't convinced. There was overwhelming evidence of metallurgy sans newly forged weaponry. And the presence of decorative weaponry sans the warriors. That particular missing link just didn't seem to bother the people who were so inclined towards agriculture. Was it possible that this tribal group had deliberately forsaken this part of their identity? Or had they cast it aside after the Aschen came preaching peace and agriculture? Or chosen not to remember?

A holler from the front of the hall broke his musings. Jack looked up sharply to see Connall gesture to an empty space beside him.

"O'Neill," Teal'c said, "I believe Connall is offering you a prized position beside him for a period time."

"Yeah," he said speculatively, a plan already forming. "Tell the rest to…mingle. Find out more about the Aschen influence in their lives." Then he got to his feet.

As Jack approached the front, a smile stretched the Keltian chieftain's round, red face as he took a long swig from his tankard. "I trust that you and your men are enjoying yourself?"

"The mead's great and the food smells even better," Jack replied truthfully as he sat down and reached out for another drinking horn. Then he signalled a passing server for a plate loaded with roasted meats. "So, what's the occasion here? Besides us?" He gestured to the merry-making. "Or do you guys eat like this all the time?"

The deliberately naïve question made the chief chuckle. "We also celebrate a very good harvest, O'Neill," Connall said, gazing into the large fire that cackled merrily in the hearth. He speared a piece of meat and chewed hard on it. "The Aschen, bless their generosity, have given us wicker hives for our meat, machines, heat and light so that our farms also prosper. They would arrive at the full moon for the next round of trade. Would you care to make their acquaintance here?"

"Oh, we've met them, Connall," Jack replied carefully in deflection then raised his horn in a mock toast, "and we probably won't be hanging around for long here. We just wanted to get to know you guys better before visiting your neighbours."

"Is this a gesture of good-will?" Connall asked knowingly with raised eyebrows, a tinge of approval in his voice. "It is always good to know your neighbours. You are welcome here. If I can be of service in anyway to you and your men, you must tell me."

And in that, Jack saw his opportunity. "Why don't you tell me more about what the Aschen have done for your people?"

The chieftain leaned back sombrely in contemplation, the tankard already forgotten in his hand.

"These are stories that have been told to me as a child, stories that have been passed down from father to son, stories of our people who crossed the land bridges of the East and journeyed to the South in search of land and peace. They finally settled in a land that they sought, thriving in a place where, after millennia, they built buildings that were thought to have reached the stars. But a great pestilence came upon my ancestors for their great pride and nearly all of our people fell to the terrible disease. But thank the heavens for the Aschen, who found them at their greatest need. They gave my people medicinal aid and helped bury our dead. Ever since, we have pledged our gratitude to them."

That was hell of a back-story, Jack thought as he nodded and frowned into his drink.

Buildings that reached the stars? And now they've regressed to…this?

He was more than certain that there was a lot more to it than what met the eye, according to what Connall had unknowingly revealed. But myth and reality had intermingled in Connall's tale and he needed to unravel each separate thread as inconspicuously as he could.

"Connall, did you or your father live through the plague?"

"By the time I was born, Verlamion had long been an established community of crop cultivation. Why do you ask, Jack?"

"It's, well, you know," Jack fudged and gestured around, struggling for a reply that could relay an appropriate amount of curiosity and interest to the inquiring Chieftain, "tough if you've had to live through these hard times yourself. Curiously though, what you just told me…were these just stories?" Then he shrugged slightly to make a production of continued naïveté. "Just askin', you know."

A slight grimace twisted the large beard that lined Connall's upper lip. "These are stories that the Aschen had told us of our ancestors."

Now that threw him for a loop. "What do you mean?"

Connall frowned in remembrance. "The Aschen said that the pestilence had ravaged our land so thoroughly that they were only able to save a few, including all the babes. Those were old enough found that they couldn't remember much of what they suffered. Perhaps even this is a deeper blessing in disguise."

"So you guys are happy here? With whatever you have?"

Connall tilted his head marginally at the question. "We are content. We live off the land simply. The sun and the rain from the heavens bring us more than sufficient food and the turning of the seasons brings us a changing landscape. My people are living longer than they would have had under the pestilence. And by the time they are returned to the earth after many, many years, there is not much else to regret. The Aschen have made all these possible."

"I see," Jack said quietly.

For the Keltia, their present and future were set on a different course the moment the Aschen had changed their world. The upheavals of the past had faded into nothing more than poetic narratives that were revisited, regaled and embellished at feasting tables.

"Our people in this settlement are the last of the Keltia." The resignation in Connall's tone was apparent. "Without the Aschen, the Keltia would have all perished in the pestilence long ago."

* * *

**Aschen Prime  
P4C-970  
April 24, 2001**

"-typical interstellar cloud is supported against collapse by internal turbulent motions, but to achieve these motions through a simulator requires the same energy used-"

"-and by manipulating the photosphere of a luminous body to obtain an effective temperature-"

It wasn't often that a large portion scientific team got dragged off-world together, but when they did, they behaved worse than errant school children on a day excursion to the zoo.

And Sam was tired of playing the de-facto schoolmistress as they made their way towards the city core from the Stargate.

With rare generosity shown by other races that SG-1 had encountered, the Aschen High Council had granted permission for the SGC's scientific research department to visit a limited portion of the Aschen laboratories for an hour. They'd jumped on it, eager even for a small taste of how Aschen engineering worked.

"It's like being back at school again," said an amused voice from her side.

Sam turned to see the base's CMO dressed in BDUs and protective gear walking alongside her sporting a big grin. Remembering those days filled with nothing but grief-motivated study and academic advancement after her mother's death, she shook her head emphatically.

"You're wrong. High school was easier."

"So they're excited. Can you blame them? I'm excited too, but not that excited because my medical job will eventually become obsolete."

"Or you could work with the Aschen doctors."

"Right. What use can I be?"

"Don't underestimate yourself, Janet," Sam murmured, keeping an eye out on the animatedly chatting scientists who ambled in front of them.

Without realising, she sighed and looked down at her shoes, not catching the knowing glance on her friend's face. She missed Daniel, who was off somewhere in Washington D.C. with Hammond to straighten out some parts of the negotiation process to do with cultural exchange. Teal'c silent, reassuring presence was gone and the Colonel-

"You miss them. SG-1's not been the same since Colonel O'Neill left on his mission." The statement was short, succinct and brutally cutting.

Sam blinked, not wanting to get drawn into an impromptu discussion in public space. "Don't start, Janet. Not here. Not now."

"Why not? No one's around us." The doctor turned her head right and left in a show of pointing out that the scientists, many steps ahead, were out of earshot.

"Okay, you want to know?" She laughed hollowly. "I'll tell you a good thing that has happened recently. Joe."

A look of surprise crossed Janet's face at the voluntary piece of information. "So, what's with him, Sam?"

"Honestly? I don't know."

"I think you do, Sam. There's some-"

"Janet, please-"

But the doctor continued insistently, "You know, Sam, I never would have thought that I'd be saying this. I know what this is doing to you. You've got someone else in the picture, complicating things even as SG-1's been taken apart-"

It stung more than she thought it should have. "And whose fault is that?" she interrupted Janet's patient words, feeling anger, disbelief and pain surge through her. "If the Colonel hadn't been so stubborn and gone off on his own-"

Her friend wasn't perturbed. "Has the team really listened to what he was saying? There are those few times I know that O'Neill has been wrong. But this time…" Janet shook her head and went on, "I know the Colonel has very strong convictions over this."

"We've had many briefings on this alliance. We've hashed out the issues that-"

"I'm not talking about that," Janet told her, "I've seen how quick you and Daniel have been to shut him down each time he raises an argument. Look, I'm all for the improvement in technology and the advances in medicine, and pretty much for saving the whole human race. But you also don't want to gain everything the Aschen is giving and lose the best thing you've had in years."

"And what would that be, Janet?" She regretted the question as soon as it left her lips.

The pause that followed was significant. "You know what exactly that is and don't make me to tell you something you already know."

"Janet, please," she pleaded, throwing her friend a hard look.

The doctor shook her head reluctantly and relented, "I hope you know what you're doing."

She rushed to reassure her friend in the hopes that she'd leave this well alone for now. "Yeah, I know, Janet."

But just whom was she trying to convince?

* * *

**P3A-220  
April 27, 2001 **

"Is that-"

"I think it is."

"O'Neill, it would seem that the Chappa'ai is built too close to the smoking mountain."

"Volcano, Teal'c. It's called a volcano. And from the looks of it, an active one."

"On Chulak, we have landforms that all Jaffa believe are manifestations of a primeval time when gods lived among us."

"False gods," Jack cut in, waving an impatient arm.

Ignoring the interruption, Teal'c continued, "Many die each time because the gods' anger cannot be contained."

Actually, Teal'c, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for what we term volcanic activity," Turner offered. "Deep beneath a planet's surface, or at least on Earth, you've got a mass of molten rock called magma. Its low density means it's always trying to rise to the surface and when it does, the gasses trapped inside it eventually find their way out and are released in an explosion."

"I see."

"Do you ever wonder why they actually build the gate so close?" Ferretti asked, peering into his binoculars as he shifted to get into a more comfortable position behind the boulders.

"Yeah, well, the land always changes," Turner put in. "What might be a field one day could be completely gone the next, you know? Geological changes."

"Sir, I see farmland and the remains of a city to the east," Ferretti said.

"Good. Turner, when you're finished with the science class..." Jack snapped and trailed off meaningfully.

"Uh, yes, Sir."

"Okay, move out."

Jack began the rocky descent, taking the downward slope from the side of the gate as his team followed. They stopped only where the slope evened out onto a grassy plain bordered by a massive perimeter of rocks and ruins.

"The civilisation is either abandoned or in ruins, O'Neill," Teal'c observed.

"But what would explain the Aschen's interest in this world if there's nothing here for them?" Ferretti countered sceptically.

"We don't know that yet, Ferretti," Jack said as he took a long look around, his panoramic survey suddenly interrupted by a small scratching sound. "Turner, what the hell are you doing?"

Turner looked up from where he was scuffing his boot in the dirt. "Sir, there's a distinct line here in the soil colour and texture between the tree line and the valley that leads towards the volcano. It seems to suggest that some kind of soil rehabilitation has taken place, or at least been attempted. The new layer of soil has a more reddish tinge to the older brown one."

"Your point being, Dani-" Jack asked edgily, then corrected himself with as much nonchalance as he could muster. "Turner?"

Teal'c spoke, understanding dawning in his heavily-lined eyes. "These are signs of civilisation rebuilding itself, O'Neill. Major Turner has observed that soil rehabilitation is occurring. That would mean that what you are looking for would not be far from here."

"Okay kids," Jack conceded. "Let's go hunting."

* * *

The Laneii were also simple people, Jack thought as he reached for the breadbasket that was passed around the inhabitants who had gathered around a fire for a night of tales and feasting.

"When _Ognaya Gure_ sent its fire into the sky, our people fled the great ridge of the _Hryebyet_ to find the land that awash in liquid…"

The droning voice of the storyteller fell away in the cackle of the flames.

A particularly loud burst of laughter from the other side of the gathering caught his attention. On his left, Turner was talking to a group of men who seemed entranced in what he had to say about billiards and American football. On the other side, Ferretti was unusually quiet, taking sips from the fruity beverage that had been passed around.

Jack tore off a piece from the bread rolls in the basket and absently nodded his thanks.

The Laneii had told a similar story of the Aschen intervention. They had been victims of a cataclysmic volcanic eruption, perishing in great numbers when the lava flow had obliterated their city nearly a century ago. The Aschen had come at an hour of need. They helped rebuild, got the people going, and inserted them neatly into the ever-growing list of Confederation planets. Now the Laneii farmed, they traded and they lived peacefully.

End of story. Or at least that was what he and his team had learned in the first hour with the Laneii.

Had he really been wrong all along, looking for something where there was none? Jack exhaled hard and tossed the bread back into the basket, changing his mind about eating.

Years fighting the Goa'uld had merely sharpened his cynical edge; SG-1 had their asses bitten way too often when unexpected repercussions often followed the wake of an apparent offer of help and good-will. And typically, in true SG-1 fashion, the other shoe normally fell with a deafening thud. It had taken hard lessons to learn that no one gave anything for free and the simplicity of the reciprocal relationship that the Aschen had with its other allies defied this deeply-entrenched belief.

Jack idly pushed the dirt around with a long stick that he'd found near the campsite, staring at the ground in deep thought. With a clarity given by distance, he silently admitted that it had been more than sheer stubbornness that had driven him on this particular mission when he'd taken flight from the SGC with the full intention of showing up his government's misguided belief in the Aschen. The bottom line that he'd fed Hammond was that they needed to know more first before signing the planet's future away to an advanced race whose intentions weren't exactly made clear.

But if he were to be totally honest with himself, the sudden, fevered drive that had in part given him the final push for this long-term mission had also stemmed from the burning need for some distance away from Carter.

He swore inwardly, forcing his attention deliberately away from someone whom he should have long considered lost to him.

"Colonel O'Neill."

The sound of his name said with an unfamiliar accent made him look up.

The chief, as the Laneii called him was asking curiously, "Are you not enjoying yourself?"

"There's food, drink and good company. What's not to like, Chief?" He raised his eyebrows in mock question and saw the Laneii man chuckle in good humour.

"So tell me. To which land are you and your men going next? The eighteen worlds in the Confederation are beautiful, some more beautiful than others. But the people are wonderful."

The chief's innocent question stopped him short.

Eighteen? A discrepancy in the planet count?

He met Teal'c's raised eyebrows with a slight frown, then looked back at the chief. Next to him, Ferretti and Turner sat up sharply.

"The Aschen told us that there were seventeen of these planets," Jack replied casually, carefully schooling his expression neutral. "Or I must have heard it wrong."

He felt a heartfelt clap on his back. "You have indeed heard wrong, my friend."

"Have you been to all of them? All eighteen?" Ferretti asked.

"Once every five cycles, the leaders convene in a different world, where trading routes and supply stores are reconsidered and reallocated. But many of us lead peaceful, content lives and seldom use the portal to travel to other worlds, although we can. You will find in your travels that many of these worlds resemble ours."

He repeated the question in disbelief. "All the worlds look like yours?"

The chief shrugged, misinterpreting the question for clarification. "Indeed, on all seventeen worlds, except for one. The Aschen are efficient and impartial moderators of our estates. We are always impressed by the way they manage the trade networks and actually allocate the necessary equipment and amount of grain that we need for our homes. The eighteenth world is a recent settlement of the Aschen, to which we provide grain, but its weather conditions make it difficult for us to visit."

Jack shut his eyes briefly, letting the implications of the chief's explanation sink in.

The eighteenth planet was everything that the seventeen worlds _weren't_, if they went by what the Laneii chief said. And who would willingly settle on an ice planet? More importantly, why wasn't it ever mentioned?

Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Ferretti and Turner exchange a wary look.

"What do you mean?" Turner urged.

The chief took a look at their serious, tense faces and chortled. "It is nothing as dire as you think. The cold envelops the eighteenth world. Many of us have long grown accustomed to the long months of warmth and light that our own worlds offer. A portion of the grain that we produce is sent to this icy world because the weather cannot sustain any growth there."

"For how long has this world required the provision of sustenance from your people?" Teal'c asked, his face a solemn mask.

"It has been twelve cycles for us since we started giving grain."

"For what reason would people willingly choose to resettle on an inhospitable planet?"

The Laneii man shrugged. "We were told that these inhabitants were relocated there because the harsh weather conditions were the closest to their home planet that they had lost."

Jack pursed his lips, letting the chief's revelation wash over him, feeling a sense of unease. Who else in the Confederation had lost their home world to disease or disasters? He understood that not everyone had a preference for beaches, but why would anyone willingly relocate to a planet was in a state of permanent winter?

Why had this settlement project on a mysterious world of extreme temperatures been conveniently left unmentioned in the negotiation process? Even though the negotiations at state level had demanded of the Aschen to reveal all the members of the Confederation states. Jack was quietly sure of this, having pored through the reports and the minutes of the briefings that came to the SGC, examining the clauses and the terms of agreement over and over again. Not that anyone had noticed what he'd been doing, given his well-known dislike for paperwork and his supposed penchant for steering clear of it.

He had been more than happy to keep them thinking that way, perpetuating the myth of a Colonel who lived by guns, brawn and little brain.

Yet for all the reading he did, the inability to do anything more than listen to counterarguments during those past months of frustrated helplessness had grated his nerves raw, exacerbated by the mounting pressure to produce something that validated his gut feel about the Aschen.

He itched for action. And now it looked as though they'd finally been given a lead.

Jack turned to the chief and held out the long stick that he'd unconsciously been using to draw lines into the ground.

"Could you tell me the address of this planet?"

The man was nonplussed but willing to please. "Of course."

The glyphs slowly took their shapes in the ground, the first sharp edges of the Centaurus constellation appearing under his meticulous hand.

Four pairs of eyes intently followed the path of the stick in the dirt.

Serpens Caput came after, followed by Aquila, then Sagittarius.

"Ferretti, we'll need your torch," Jack ordered midway through. "Turner, Teal'c, check and see if the chief's drawing matches the addresses filed in the pre-mission report."

The crackling sound of paper joined the cackle of the flames as Turner rummaged through his pack.

Corona Australis. Boötes. Equuleus.

"I hope my memory serves me well, but this is it."

"Thank you."

The man stood up slowly and nodded his acknowledgement to the team. "I bid you a goodnight, O'Neill. We have an early start tomorrow."

Jack stood, returned the sentiment politely and looked around, realising that the merrymaking had abruptly stopped the moment the chief decided to retire to bed. Then he sat down again and turned his attention to the waiting team.

"It's bedtime for the village," he announced tersely, suddenly tense with anticipation. "So what have you got?"

"We've gone through it twice, Sir. And even had Ferretti help," Turner supplied, running his fingers down the list for the third time.

"And?"

"The address of the eighteenth planet is not part of the list of the Confederation worlds that the Aschen has given the Tau'ri," Teal'c confirmed, his face hard.

All perception of time briefly fell away as Jack stared at the glyphs imprinted on the ground.

_Bingo_.

Then he looked up at expectant faces. "Change of plans, kids. That's next on our list."


	6. Unexamined

_A/N: Thank you for your reviews._

* * *

**Chapter 6 - Unexamined**

**SGC  
Colorado Springs  
April 30, 2001**

"Report, Major. And have a seat."

"Thank you, Sir. Colonel O'Neill has instructed me to keep my reports verbal for now," Turner started out.

Hammond nodded in agreement, recognising this was just another way O'Neill protected the information.

"Understood. Carry on."

"We gated to P3W-225 as our first stop, which is another agrarian world in the Confederation of planets. The natives of the planet call themselves the Keltia and bear a strong cultural and physical resemblance to Earth's insular Iron Age Celts. They live on a fortified hill a few clicks from the Stargate on a land they call Verlamion. Having learnt of our pending acceptance into the Aschen Confederation, we were readily welcomed as friends. In their tradition of oral-storytelling, tales of the Aschen's influence are passed from father to son, and have been for millennia. According to Connall, the Keltian Chieftain, the Keltia used to be a powerful and advanced civilisation that fell to a great plague a long time ago, the catastrophe decimating more than half their population. In the throes of their trouble, which had by then, left their civilisation in ruins, the Aschen appeared and rendered aid to whom they were able. Unfortunately, those whom they rescued were mostly children who had no memory of the actual pandemic."

Hammond interrupted Turner's report with some disbelief. "So all they remember is what they Aschen had told them of their civilisation's history?"

Turner nodded ruefully. "Yes, Sir. It's a story of their history that's learned from the Aschen. The chief did mention to Colonel O'Neill that Verlamion had been a farming community way before he was born and so the only remnants of their past are simply the Keltian decorative weaponry used as house furnishings."

"And how you describe their relationship with the Aschen?"

"Many of the villagers whom we spoke to look to them as their saviours who had saved their lineage when everything was gone. Thanks to the harvesters provided by the Aschen, they have also regained a firm grip on their agricultural produce. Not long after, they established a thriving trade of their produce on other Confederation planets while providing the Aschen with a constant food supply. It looks like a mutually-beneficial relationship, Sir."

Hammond kept silent for a while, allowing the various facets of the report to sink in. "Were you able to determine just how involved the Aschen had been in rebuilding their society?"

"The straight answer, Sir, that we don't know. Given the oral traditions and the lack of any physical remnants of the old Keltian civilisation, it is extremely difficult to ascertain the extent of the Aschen's interference. How had they found the Keltia? And what were their motives for helping them to rebuild an agrarian civilisation after the pandemic? These were questions that we tried asking the villagers, but no one seemed to know any more than what I've have just reported, Sir."

Hammond frowned and stared at the tip of his pen for a moment. "And what are Colonel O'Neill's thoughts on this?"

"In fact, Sir, it was the Colonel's recommendation to stay three days on Verlamion after it became clear that we'd started to repeat our questions. But Colonel O'Neill had also been eager to embark on the next mission to the second world."

"Which brings us to that. What more do you have?"

Turner allowed himself to briefly recall the team's experience on the second planet.

"P3A-220 is second on the list of planets that we gated to after Verlamion. It is a place that experiences frequent tectonic and volcanic activity and because of this, the land mostly consists of deep volcanic loams that are particularly good for pasture growth. Approximately three kilometres from the gate is another agrarian civilisation where people lead similar lives to that of the Keltia. The Laneii, as they are known, have retained traces of their culture and language, which, according to the Colonel, appear to be a derivative of old Russian. In fact, we've a clearer picture of what happened on this world. The Aschen's intervention in their lives began four generations ago when their crops started failing after a large-scale volcanic eruption on the planet. They were given help in rebuilding their civilisation, then later granted entry into a vast trading network existing between the Confederation planets. The people live in several concentrated regions on the planet and communicate with each other using Aschen networking technology on their harvesters. If this is sounding familiar, Sir, the baseline is that so far, we've met groups of people who live peacefully off the land with the support of the Aschen who appear as saviours to all."

The frown on Hammond's face turned severe. The stories were too similar and the outcomes too predictable. If success could be measured quantified by distance, they'd probably only stepped a yard forward.

"Four generations would make it several centuries at most."

Turners caught on to what the General must have been thinking. "Yes, Sir. It's quite a contrast to the millennia that Connall talked about."

"What is the average population of each planet?"

"About five hundred people live in Verlamion. But we are uncertain if the rest of the planet is populated by other scattered tribes. As for the Laneii on P3A-220, they are more or less a homogeneous bunch of farmers that number about a thousand in all. It's at this point that I should mention, Sir, that the Laneii chief revealed that there're actually eighteen planets and not seventeen that comprise the Confederation states. According to the chief, there are harsh temperatures on that world, but the Aschen have still chosen to build a new settlement on it despite the unfavourable conditions. It's a project that began over a year ago."

Hammond's head snapped up.

_This_ was new. As far as he knew, the Aschen's omission of information had already breached several terms of agreement in the preliminary negotiation process. It was a potentially damning act that could lead to the breakdown of the Earth-Aschen alliance.

But was this just paranoia speaking, honed from years dealing with the Goa'uld?

"Did the chief give a reason for this new settlement, Major?"

"I don't think he knows much more than what he revealed, Sir. The Laneii trade primarily with this world and supply the growing settlement with grain, which was how Colonel O'Neill had unwittingly discovered its existence.

"And the Colonel is also well-aware that the Aschen omitted any mention of this particular planet?"

"Yes, Sir."

Hammond didn't reply immediately as he pulled out the meticulously planned mission brief that Jack had left on his table a week ago. Ever since O'Neill's team had gated out, he constantly wondered if he'd been hasty in approving the Colonel's request. But O'Neill had been convinced that something had gone awry. And he'd promised Jack the benefit of the doubt, had trusted him to get somewhere with this and had given him more leeway than he should have.

Perhaps this particular slip of the tongue by an unwitting village chief had justified it all.

He understood full well that the stakes in this treaty were high; politicking Senators and top officials wanted a bite of this lucrative project for reasons that had less to do with the general good it would bring to humankind than it had with padding their pockets. But to pick up the red telephone immediately was to start a chain reaction that would bring the political fight straight to the SGC's door, a consequence that would most likely curtail all off-world activities and permanently put paid to what O'Neill's team had just uncovered.

Hammond made a mental note to make several calls later in the day to those whom he trusted. He needed cooperation, not a turf war, but the former far from guaranteed when especially it came to the SGC. In the meantime, perhaps it was best to let Jack to continue with his job. After all, the Colonel hadn't disappointed each time Hammond had relied on his leadership to get SG-1 out of impossible situations.

And now, though it was early days yet, it looked as though Jack was yet again going to prove all of them wrong.

Hammond pulled out a stray sheet of paper from a drawer and jotted down something. "Should I assume that there's been a change in mission plans then?"

"The Colonel has decided that we're going to gate to that planet next, Sir. He's also requesting that the omission of the eighteenth planet be kept on hold for the moment until we have concrete evidence of Aschen duplicity," Turner said, seeing Hammond finally nod his approval. "I've been instructed to bring over cold-weather gear as well."

"Granted, Major," Hammond replied immediately. "I'll have it arranged. I assume you have the address for this?"

"Yes, Sir." Turner hastily scratched the glyphs out on a piece of paper and passed it to Hammond, who gave the address a quick glance before folding and pocketing the information.

"Major Turner, at this point in time, I am going to change our standard operating protocols for reporting back every week. Seeing as this planet is not one of the worlds listed on the Abydos cartouche and one that the Aschen have overlooked – whether deliberately or not –, tell the Colonel that he has the entire week, with an extension up to ten days on this world to conduct covert operations and reconnaissance if necessary. There will be a twenty-four-hour window following the ten days after which your remote transmitter codes will be locked out. Is that understood?"

Turner's returning look was serious. "Yes Sir, understood, Sir."

"Now, besides the significant discovery of the eighteenth planet in the Confederation, has Colonel O'Neill noticed anything else out of the ordinary thus far?"

"In the Colonel's own words, both the Laneii and the Keltia seem to be a screwed version of feudalism with unbelievable happiness all around," Turner said with a slight smirk, his recount involuntarily eliciting an amused snort from Hammond. "He and Teal'c have also noticed particular aspects of such a society that are missing, like the absence of warrior classes or a military caste that is often found in tribal societies. This is particularly true of the Keltia. With some inference on our part, it is possible that the Aschen's doctrine of peace must have been an important tenet of the conditions they meted out to the tribes in exchange for the aid they rendered."

"And that itself warrants more investigation," Hammond responded.

"Yes, Sir. We have not seen any kind of firearms or assault weapons in use thus far. And if the Laneii chief is correct in saying that all worlds are similar to theirs, it might be a safe assumption that the same conditions of enforced peace apply throughout."

Hammond nodded in grim satisfaction. "Thank you, Turner. If that's all, you will be free to rejoin your team on P3A-220 after you collect the gear. I believe I can expect a report again in about ten days, barring no incidents?"

"Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir."

"Good luck."

* * *

**Washington D.C  
April 30, 2001**

"-implies that the angular momentum carried by the wind, which equals the angular momentum lost by the disk, all of which can drive accretion. That was a good question, thank you."

The opening door sent a sliver of light through the darkened room as she was wrapping up her lecture.

A man slipped in quietly and stood with his back to the wall with his arms crossed, patiently awaiting the end of the session.

Sam squinted at the latecomer, seeing only his silhouette, then glanced at her watch.

"I'm afraid there's only time for one last question."

A hand shot up from the middle of the room.

The hand belonged to a curly-haired postgraduate student who had stared at her a little too long and smiled a bit too much. "A theory of molecular cloud assembly hypothesises that large colliding flows compress the diffuse warm neutral medium in shock layers of the flow. Would you consider magnetic fields being a contributing factor to the formation of such clouds?"

Sam paused, trying to remember the short excerpt of an article in a journal that she'd recently read. "I think that's a pertinent question. A recent research project in the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has in fact, just begun studying the influence of magnetic fields in the cloud formation process, and is based on numerical simulations performed with FLASH code. The functionality of the set-up however, is still in the refinement process."

It was the interaction that she enjoyed the most in such presentations and lectures, the dynamic flow of differing ideas sending an exhilarated thrill through her that was second only to going through the gate. And she was almost sorry that this session had come to an end.

A click of a button sent the last page of her presentation onto the screen. The lights were then turned up through the smattering of applause, and Sam hurried to thank the participants for their attendance.

Only when the crowd had fully dispersed did Joe Faxon walk towards the front of the room where he found her busy packing up her laptop and her briefcase.

"How are you doing, stranger?"

She turned to face him with a surprised smile. "Joe! How did you know I was here?"

He looked briefly abashed. "I found out from Dr. Jackson that you've been shuttling frequently between D.C. and Colorado Springs ever since the negotiations began. So when I heard that you were here, let's just say it wasn't too difficult to find out where you were giving a guest lecture."

"Wow, I…" she stuttered, dimly wondering why she couldn't quite muster a coherent response. "I don't know what to say."

He took over easily, grinning at having rendered her briefly speechless. "Say you'll have time for a drink with me."

Joe was smoothly confident, Sam realised, possessing an effortless way with words that could charm a dozen ladies into many dinner dates. She felt comfortable with him. So why did it feel so unsettling to want a bit more?

"Well, I…I don't know, I have to get back to base later and…"

"Please? There's a great place not too far from here. And I promise you'll be in time for your flight."

It wasn't hard to give in, not when a voice from within prodded her to see what he had to say. Sam relented, letting him take her briefcase as he gallantly ushered her out of the room.

In retrospect, she should have known Joe would have brought her to an expensive rooftop café that boasted fine china and a city skyline that left her breathless. The late afternoon sun streamed through the glass windows, its warmth touching her arms in thick, orange bands.

"It's a beautiful place."

He waited until they placed their orders. "So are you a frequent speaker at such…complicated scientific conventions?"

"I try to, actually. It's my way of keeping up with the academic world. And seeing that I don't go off-wor-," Sam stopped abruptly before she let on too much, "off on missions that much ever since we made our new friends, General Hammond has given me a bit more leeway to lecture and attend conferences. In fact, this series of lectures on the theories of star formation-" she caught herself in time and smiled wryly, "If I go on any more, I'll be talking about something you'd find boring".

His eyes had crinkled in laughter. "Sam, I'm just happy to hear your voice," he told her frankly, his adoring gaze fixed on her. "I hadn't thought of anything beyond rushing out of the office to catch you at your presentation."

She flushed at the honest compliment, a smile forming on her lips. "I can't be that much in demand."

"You have no idea just how much," he told her knowingly, "You could probably talk science all day, and I'd still listen if I didn't understand a thing."

Suddenly, a memory of another time clicked into place.

_Ambassador, you gotta be careful about the use of the word 'how' unless you really want to know._

The Colonel's voice surfaced in her mind, havingjokingly told Faxon in one of their earliest meetings that she couldn't be trusted with a succinct answer. Then, it had taken all she could do not to roll her eyes fondly at her CO.

Their camaraderie and chemistry they shared had still been intact back then, she realised with a pang. And where was he now? Traipsing some place far away while she sat with a man whom she merely _liked_? Sam bit back that wave of sadness and longing, forcing herself to focus on the man in front of her.

Faxon's smile faded slowly. "There's something else I wanted to tell you, actually. In our negotiations today, I've learnt from our…new friends that your, uh, your unit has been chosen to try out the new vaccine."

The astonishing news left her astounded; her hasty reply was thankfully lost in the waitress's approach with their drinks.

Only when she'd taken a large sip of her coffee did she manage a response. "Isn't that too soon? You can't be serious. What about…testing?"

He looked around, then lowered his voice. "I think the sooner we get to solve Earth's problems, the better. Surely you'll agree with me at least on this?"

"I hadn't heard anything from General Hammond about it," Sam argued, pressing her hand against her eyes wearily.

"It's a recent development." Joe acknowledged as he poured milk into his own cup, his gaze inquisitive. "But you don't sound too keen."

His observation made her realise that she had been developing her own list of doubts about this coming alliance. To her surprised chagrin, it was a list that suspiciously mirrored the Colonel's own reservations.

Jack O'Neill's influence was just that far-reaching.

She told him carefully, "I think there're certain considerations that we haven't fully discussed yet."

He blinked in mild surprise. "Such as?"

"Not here, Joe." Her quiet voice stopped him from presenting a more cogent argument in favour of the vaccine's delivery.

So he acquiesced easily, knowing it wasn't the time nor the place. Besides, the conversation wasn't quite going down the path that he wanted.

"Anyway, Joe, I-"

He stopped her in mid-sentence. "Sam, would it be impossible to postpone your flight till tomorrow? We could go for dinner after this, if you're willing. And maybe even dancing, though I must warn you, I'm not that much of one."

Her jaw dropped slightly in shock. It was going too fast. Much too fast for her to handle with a rational mind. But when had such matters ever been successfully reasoned anyway?

"I, uh, I…"

Why did his request cause even her thoughts to stutter?

He'd rightly assumed a reciprocal interest coming from her, and simply sought to take it further. It was just another step to serious dating. Or had she naïvely convinced herself that she was just meeting him as a friend when all signs pointed in another, more obvious direction?

A week with the Colonel gone and Sam found herself on edge more easily than she'd been since she found out about her transfer from the Pentagon to the SGC, more confused than she'd been since Jonas Hanson, and more _messed_ than she could remember.

Maybe what she needed was more time away from this. From _all_ of the things that easily unseated her. The Colonel included. The lack of his presence on base did make it easier, after all.

With a deep breath, Sam took the plunge.

"I'm sorry, Joe, but I really need to get back to Colorado tonight," she told him apologetically, hating the disappointment appear on his face and the guilt that surfaced in her voice.

"That's okay, really," he tried with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "There's always a next time."

"Uh, yeah," Sam managed softly, "There always is. Maybe."

But he was already shaking his head. "Samantha," he started gently, taking her hand, "I think I should be straightforward about this. If you don't know by now, I think you're a beautiful woman and I'm hoping desperately that the interest on my part isn't one-sided. And I think you know that. But I understand if you are having second thoughts, or if you aren't ready for anything more than just a casual dinner. But whatever you decide, I'll need you to be clear with me about this."

Sam flushed deeply, hating herself in that moment for her indecision and insecurities, having always prided herself on the total opposite. Joe was right; she owed him that much.

The bald truth was that the Colonel – despite his absence – was a constant, almost-daily spectre in her mind, a creation of fevered longing that had become the yardstick by which all other men were measured.

It had always been Colonel O'Neill.

Jack.

His name was _Jack._ A name that she'd never allowed to form on her lips, nor allowed herself to even think about the intimate form of address.

It was then that she knew the attraction fallen into something deeper, something more profound than what she'd admitted to a few months ago under the pressure of an alien lie detector. And it was ironic how she'd only put herself on the path of discovery as another man sat in front of her and cornered her with his doubt.

Joe had laid all the cards on the table. He had been forthright when she hadn't. And until she knew what the hell she was doing, he truly deserved better than a woman whose swaying indecision could potentially destroy both of them.

She took a deep breath and met his gaze without flinching. "I don't know what to say but that I'm really sorry."

"Is there someone else?" His shrewd eyes bore into her. "Someone else for whom you're more willing to put yourself out there? Is that why you've been rather unsure?"

She flushed, knowing that he'd come closer to the truth than he knew. Had she been that obvious?

His brutally forthright question had tilted her universe on its edges, causing her to stammer an incoherent response.

"I…no, actually, this…" Sam trailed off, turning her head away in barely-concealed embarrassment. "It's really complicated…"

But Joe was watching her closely, clearly seeing the obvious conflict she'd tried desperately to smooth over.

He exhaled noisily, reached blindly for his drink and tucked away the disappointment. "I understand."

"I don't think you do," Sam countered quietly, knowing that she owed him some honesty at least. She forced the words out but even to her ears, they sounded foreign. "But I can only say sorry, Joe. For…leading you on when I had no idea what I was doing."

"Wow. That sounds…final," he said at last, still unwilling to accept her answer for what it was. "Can't say I'm not disappointed or that I know what's going on. But, could I at least ask you to take time to think about this? About us?"

She was already shaking her head when he interrupted her once more, hoping that the last of his advances wouldn't be too unwelcome. "I'll accept it even if you say no. But give it a think at least. Please. And if you change your mind," he gave her a weak smile, "you know where to find me."

His kind acceptance made her shoulders slump in relief as the manacles of tension released their hold on her.

She gave him a slight, unsure smile in return and promised, "I will."


	7. White

**Chapter 7 - White**

**P4A-121  
May 1, 2001**

It was cold. Colder than a damn witch's ass and way worse than it was during a Northern Minnesotan winter. Without the appropriate clothing, the freezing winds alone would have killed them.

"Interesting," Ferretti murmured, his breath curling white in the air. "So there's something else besides farms and more farms."

"Indeed."

"But boring. And not to mention, bizarre," Jack corrected loudly, doing a full three-sixty sweep before clenching his gloved hands. He stepped down from the low platform on which the Stargate was mounted, taking in the sole speck of civilisation that lay within a dark, impenetrable forest blanketed by a white dusting of snow. "It's like looking at Lego that's been invented by the Aschen."

From the slight elevation in that forest clearing where the gate stood, a long, wide path neatly bisected the forest floor, wound past the tree line and went straight into the small town about a mile away. Secondary streets joined the walkway in perpendicular lines, along which rows of flat-roofed, white buildings stood. On the main street, the inhabitants ambled down the long walkways, donned in garments coloured in shades of grey, cut in the severe style of the Aschen tunics.

Then it clicked.

The town's layout was a cruder, smaller version of Aschen Prime, the city that SG-1 had gated to months ago. But why was the town built in isolation, _for_ isolation?

Jack had mumbled his doubts aloud without realising it.

"Something tells me it's the exception rather than the norm," Turner commented, reaching for his binoculars. "Sir, at first glance, the people seem to take after the Aschen, but the level of technology here looks a lot less advanced than what you've seen on Aschen Prime. It's…cruder, less…elegant than what we know of the Aschen."

"Yeah, I noticed," Jack replied more to himself than to Turner, then continued in a louder voice. "Okay folks. Let's go see what the Aschen-lite are up to."

As things typically went, the harsher the conditions of living, the more reliant the team was on the goodwill of the natives. And Jack didn't like it one bit, especially if it meant putting the whole team in a vulnerable position. Their alternative, however, was to gate right back out into warmer climes and into the welcoming arms of friendlier parties. But something was tingling in his gut, telling him to stay a little longer, despite the bad feeling he had.

With a sigh, Jack clamped down on the unease and made up his mind. They hadn't come all this way just to turn back when things were getting…interesting.

The snow puffed up in gentle clouds as their footsteps pounded through the path. They approached the town square five minutes later with the sounds of town life reaching their ears, their arrival causing the people to halt their daily activities.

This time, the stares were curious and hostile.

Not a good sign, Jack thought grimly. The place felt wrong and way off-kilter, the ready curiosity and warm reception shown on the previous worlds now distinctly absent.

He shot a warning look at the rest of his team, silently telling them to be on their guard.

A strong voice hollered from the left of the crowd. "Visitors are not welcome on Madrelan Quon'yl."

So much for hospitality. The mass of people parted to let a tall, bald man through. Jack noted uneasily that he was flanked by a large security detail, all built larger and stronger than Teal'c, their unrelenting stares sweeping the team.

The team was outnumbered in every way.

He tried the friendly approach. What was it that Daniel always did?

"And a good day to you too," he greeted genially, stretching out his hand. "I am Colonel Jack O'Neill and this are my men: Major Louis Ferretti, Major Dave Dixo-"

A curt bark stalled him mid-sentence. "I repeat. Visitors are not welcome on Madrelan Quon'yl."

"We would like to see your leader," Jack said again, clenching his other fist in a bid to keep the growing impatience from seeping into his voice.

Turner stepped forward cautiously, his hands slightly outstretched in a passable imitation of Daniel. "We are peaceful explorers and only wish to get to know our Aschen friends and allies better."

The telltale clicks of weapons readying to fire from the second rank of guards made Jack shift both hands to heft his P-90, the swiftness of the action copied in the next second by his team. But even that hadn't been fast enough; six other men who had been flanking their leader were fluidly moving to encircle his team in a forceful bid to disarm them.

Crap.

His countermove was made solely on instinct. A raised elbow and a forward headbutt caused two men to double over themselves. Dimly he was aware that Teal'c had downed two others only to stumble forward when he was hit across his back. Turner and Ferretti had already been forced prostrate in the snow, their P-90s in the hands of their attackers.

Then the world went black when the butt of a weapon was swung against his temple.

* * *

Jack woke up to a throbbing headache and aching limbs.

The realisation that he was heavily strapped down on a glossy horizontal surface made him jerk reflexively against his restraints. Forcing himself to take deep, even breaths, Jack brutally shoved aside the memory of another abyss where only rusting shackles and endless pain existed.

With a gargantuan effort, he tamped down the rising panic by using all of the techniques he'd learnt through decades of training, channelling it into a short period of intense observation.

Casting his eyes upwards, around and about, Jack tried to take stock of the unfamiliar surroundings. Clean, white walls stretched and curved into a domed ceiling. Small and tiny windows that had been punched into the walls of the upper part of the room were dusty and brown with the lack of cleaning.

He shut his eyes for a minute and let his ears do the work.

There was ordered activity in the room. Slight footfalls moved among the strange hum of machinery.

A facility of sorts. Sterile and cold.

Medical, he guessed. Or at least scientific.

How long he'd been here, he had no damn idea. But judging from the stiffness in his knees and the usual pain in his back, it felt like he'd been out for days.

Where was the rest of the team?

Tilting his head slightly to his left, he saw three small tubes protruding out of the vein in his arm, the surrounding skin slowly turning a mottled purple. They fed blue, yellow and clear liquids into his body, their flow regulated by the soft ticks of another contraption that stood behind the monitor. The other ends of the tubes were hooked to a large monitor on which a series of computations rapidly scrolled up in a script that he'd come to recognise as Aschen.

A moan filtered through, making him instinctively whip his head to his right and towards the sound…only to see a heavy, separation curtain that muffled the sudden cry of distress. The sound of footsteps converged on the unseen patient, out of his line of sight. The rattle and clang of equipment and machines followed their hurried movements.

He heard another moan of agony, wordless, now screamed in a language he didn't recognise. The cry was prolonged, louder, growing in volume to become a piercing scream of terror. The sound was immediately muffled, yet the faint noises of protest were still filtering through, made against the cloth of a stifling gag.

Then came the sound of wheels scratching along the floor and the grating noise of tearing sheets.

Thrashing. Someone was thrashing violently.

Then absolute silence.

Jack slammed his eyes tightly shut against his lids, hearing the primal screams still ring in his head.

Oh, fucking mother of god…where the _hell_ was he? And what the fuck were they doing to their patients? To _him_?

Finally, he found his voice, slightly hoarse from days of disuse and yelled as hard as he could over the noise. "Hey!"

The unsmiling face of a woman came into his field of vision. She reached for the upper ends of the tubes that had been poked into his hands, twisting knobs and pressing buttons on the machinery and screens at his side, then walked away again.

"Hey! What the hell's this about?"

Silence.

Son of a bitch.

He jerked hard once more, assessing the tightness of the straps that held him bodily immobile, then twisted his body as hard as he could until a sudden, sharp pain lanced his side. It greyed the edges of his vision. Exhaustion overtook him quickly, the brief struggle with the immovable cuffs proving too tiring for his body.

Whatever they'd injected him with, it was working, he thought dimly.

And despite the futile bid to keep awake, Jack sank once more into the blessed, welcoming darkness where pain was a distant memory.

* * *

**P4A-121  
Madrelan Quon'yl  
May 3, 2001**

They threw him into the cell roughly and hurried away, leaving Jack's teammates to rush to their fallen commander.

Ferretti's quick thinking and Teal'c assistance helped break O'Neill's sudden, forward pitch. He fell into their supporting arms and was gently lowered on the ground of their enclosure. In the harsh shadows, it was obvious that he was worse for wear. O'Neill was pallid and thinner, the dark shadows under his eyes accentuating the grey in his ruffled hair. The shapeless grey tunic and top he'd been dressed in hadn't managed to cover the dark puncture marks on his arms that stood out in stark contrast to his skin.

Teal'c's strong, steady hands helped prop him up against the wall.

"God," Turner breathed, his face slack with worry, "What the hell did they do to him?"

"There are no outward signs of violent abuse apart from the marks in his arms," Teal'c observed grimly, "Thankfully, O'Neill's injuries do not appear to be too severe."

"Sarcophagus?" Ferretti guessed. "Or something like that?"

The Jaffa examined O'Neill through narrowed eyes, then turned to Ferretti. "The Aschen will not resort to crude and stolen technology. It is unlike and beneath them."

"Teal'c, we don't know if he's suffered any internal injuries," Turner concluded. "And without a doctor, we can't assess the extent of the Colonel's wounds."

Worry for O'Neill's condition had made a deep furrow in Teal'c's forehead. "Indeed."

"We knew it couldn't be good when they took him for nearly three days."

A low groan interrupted their hushed whispers. "Wha'cha boys talkin' about?"

"Colonel?"

"Sir?"

"O'Neill?"

Hell. He felt as though fire still burned through his blood stream. It took all the effort he could muster to focus on their faces.

"Yeah?"

"Sir, if you have a concussion, you have to stay awake."

"Sir…sir?"

"How are you feeling, Sir?"

Jack grimaced and brought a hand against his throbbing temple. The voices around him were grating. All he wanted to do was to shut his eyes again and sink into that black pool of nothingness.

But their persistence won out.

"In what manner were you tortured, O'Neill?"

"Sir, if you can describe-"

"Colonel, what did you-"

The fragile moment snapped, then broke. Jack found their keen concern too cloying, the concerned chatter an unwelcome intrusion after several days of listening to the tormented screams of nameless faces.

"Hey, give me a break, will ya? I don't know what the fuck they did, seeing as I was strapped to some damn horizontal surface for god knows how long, with things…liquids flowing into me."

"I apologise, O'Neill. But it was necessary to determine the methods of the Aschen if this mission is to be successful."

"We still don't know if the inhabitants of the world are Aschen. They dress like them, but, who knows?" Ferretti piped in.

"Oh, they're Aschen alright," Jack said, then winced at the sensation of his stomach turning over as the memories assaulted him.

Sitting upright made him dizzy even though he leaned heavily on the wall. Slowly, he shifted, sliding downwards until he was horizontal once more, not even feeling the hardness of the ground. He lifted his hands experimentally, seeing them chafed red and black from the restraints and the damned needles.

"Sir?"

"Bad, boring dress sense aside, Turner, they have that same charming personality."

"Sorry, Sir," Ferretti commiserated, "I wonder why they only chose you for whatever they're doing."

Jack blinked in disbelief. "You mean you were just stuck in this hole? Didn't get any fresh air in some medical facility?"

"Apart from knocking us out when we got into that fight during our arrival, nothing else happened, Sir. I woke up in here, then I saw Teal'c and Ferretti in the same cell."

"Indeed, O'Neill. You were gone for about three Earth days in our estimation. We feared that you would never return."

It sank in slowly. Three days. Three, damned days of whatever the hell the Aschen did. And they seemed to have wanted him for a purpose, now that he'd found out his teammates had seemed to be of no interest to them at all.

"They kept me on a table like a lab rat," he told them quietly, ignoring the looks of sympathy and horror that Ferretti and Turner tried to immediately stifle. "Kept putting some kind of drug in my body. Didn't feel much except extreme tiredness and throbbing aches. Couldn't even fight it very well. Didn't know who else was there. But I heard lots of screams each time I was conscious. Someone would come…" he shuddered in remembrance, "and put them out."

For a while, no one spoke. Jack was about to drift off when Turner started out softly, "This sounds like…"

He didn't want to say it. But that didn't make the nightmare any less real.

"An experimentation project."

* * *

**SGC  
Colorado Springs  
May 4, 2001**

Paul Davis climbed the steps into the briefing room to see Janet Fraiser, the science half of SG-1 and SG-3 already seated with General Hammond at the head of the table.

"Have a seat, Major Davis."

"Thank you, Sir." The visiting officer wasted no preliminaries and handed a few folders to Hammond before passing out some notes to the rest of the table. "The anti-disease and anti-aging vaccines have been tested to be compatible with Earth's human-DNA and on the President's recommendation, the Aschen cure will be administered in three stages using the same delivery systems that have also been employed for the inhabitants of the Confederation planets. The process of administering each stage worldwide will take a few months, simply so that even those in the most remote regions of Earth will have their chance of taking the vaccine. The second and third stages will follow the same pattern of distribution as the first and the full results of which could be experienced in as quick a period of nine months."

"Wow, that's…fast."

"Yes it is, Dr. Jackson. I'd like to think we all can't wait to make the world better," Davis supplied.

"That's not the only thing, Sir," Sam said, thumbing through the notes that Davis provided. "This is one of the clauses of the agreement, that the vaccine would only be administered when the Stargate goes public. If you think about it, that makes sense. The people need to know how and by whom they're being treated. However, there seems to be a developing conflict of interest in the higher-ups who want the vaccines quickly. The squabble however, also seems to extend to the question of whom should be the first recipients of the vaccines."

"How did you come by that last piece of information, Major?"

Sam stuttered to a halt, belatedly realising her embarrassing misstep. Having been privy to the concerns among the top brass because of her earlier conversations with Joe Faxon didn't mean that Hammond was necessarily aware of them. She pursed her lips uncomfortably, avoiding his knowing look.

"Um, Sir, well, I've spoken with the Ambassador Faxon a bi-"

"It's alright, Major," Hammond cut in, sparing her further awkwardness. "I'm also cognizant of the fact that when negotiations move up to state level, they tend to lie beyond my knowledge and control. My sources say that Senator Kinsey is going to run for the Presidential election this time. And the promise of the American public getting the vaccine first will be the carrot he will offer them."

Daniel was already shaking his head. "And we thought this was going to be easy?"

Davis spoke, bringing the topic back to his initial report on the vaccine. "Regardless of what happens, Dr. Jackson, the bright point is that we are going to be the recipients of Aschen technology and medicine. The vaccines are generating a lot of interest in Washington, Sir. The Aschen are assuring us that they will be manufactured specifically to our genome which they've just mapped, the same way they did for the rest of their Confederation worlds."

"I was under the impression that the vaccine will first be made available to our scientists for study."

Davis nodded and set another set of papers on Hammond's desk. "They are being tested and re-tested as we speak, Sir. And early tests are suggesting that all of the vaccines are what they purport to be."

"Do you have a clearer explanation for that, Major?"

"If I may, Sir?" Janet interrupted.

"Carry on, Dr. Fraiser."

She nodded, then launched into an explanation that soon had the table captivated.

"At the ends of our chromosomes are stretches of DNA called telomeres. Like plastic tips on shoelaces, they prevent chromosome ends from fraying and sticking to each other. However, when the ends do fray, an organism's genetic information begins to unravel, typically resulting in disease and eventually, death. Telomeres get shorter each time a cell divides. When the telomeres get too short, the cell can no longer divide and becomes inactive or even dies. This process is associated with aging, cancer and a higher risk of death. In young cells, an enzyme called telomerase keeps telomeres from wearing down too much. But as cells divide repeatedly, there is not enough telomerase, so the telomeres grow shorter and the cells age. The Aschen's vaccines actually address the aging problem down to the cellular level. Within the vaccine is an enzyme closely resembling telomerase that adds bases to the ends of telomeres, thus keeping the telomeres from wearing down. And this is only the first phase of the vaccine, from what I know."

Janet took a quiet breath, exchanged a look with Sam, and continued.

"Another major cause of aging is oxidative stress. Basically, it means degradation and damage of our DNA, proteins and lipids caused by oxidants. The second phase of the vaccine is meant to reverse the damage done by oxidative stress by renewing the necessary proteins and lipids that are responsible for preventing tissue malfunction. The third and last phase of the vaccine addresses problems of disease and immunity. The Aschen have a prototype, or rather, a perfect model of a human DNA sample that has no inherent genetic defects. Apparently, all the vaccine needs to do is to map the perfect genome onto defective portions of our DNA. The programming of the vaccine also ensures that all of the defective portions are renewed and repaired, which, in time to come, would translate to total eradication of illnesses."

"That sounds like good news, doctor," Hammond said slowly.

"It's certainly exciting times, Sir," Janet replied. "Aschen medical science is leaving everyone in awe of just how much they have accomplished."

"And Sir," Davis continued in barely suppressed excitement, "because the SGC has been instrumental in discovering our new allies, the President has recommended that the base-personnel and all the support staff be given first priority in the administration of the vaccine. The President thinks it's a fitting reward for the SGC's hard work."

Hammond levelled Davis with a piercing stare. "Has there been a timeline already written out for this?"

"It has been tentatively proposed that the vaccine will be made available to the SGC in about three months. The worldwide delivery systems are still undergoing tests by Earth's scientists who are working with the Aschen on it."

Hammond nodded his acknowledgement, knowing the stakes in the conflict of interests just got higher. The Aschen vaccines had been proven trustworthy – or so they thought – but did that make the Aschen worthy allies? After Turner's report, he was equally convinced that the Colonel was on the verge of discovering something big enough to throw doubtful light on what was happening too quickly here.

The answer was there…hidden in the memories of the nameless, faceless inhabitants of the worlds in the Confederation.

He just needed his second IC to find it.


	8. Flax

**Chapter 8 - Flax**

**P4A-121  
Madrelan Quon'yl  
May 5, 2001**

There were people hovering over him. But under the glare of the bright, white light, he couldn't make out their faces.

But he already knew. They'd be expressionless, voiceless, communicating as though by telepathy.

His body was coming apart at the seams, even though it'd stopped hurting each time they poked their shit into his arms and let the damn poison through.

It wasn't entirely unexpected that they had come again for him a day later. At an hour that Teal'c thought was daybreak, they came, jacketed and trousered in grey-linen and dragged him out, accompanied by those burly guards that had torn them open the first day.

But a day of recuperation in the cell had given him some measure of lucidity. The tiredness had nearly left his body and he felt strong enough to at least stand and walk.

Sheer adrenaline had given him the impetus to swing around and knock his guards out as they tried to carry him onto that lab table. They had collapsed silently to the ground, but not without activating an alarm that had brought more of them pouring into the room.

All it had taken was a punch and an injection to bring him down.

He awoke strapped down, with the same three tubes in his arm.

The screams continued, this time on his left and his right. In his fevered state, they belonged to a boy and a woman who screamed for help and for salvation all those years ago.

None came.

* * *

It could have been hours or days.

The sound of quiet footsteps woke him up again from a dreamless state in which he lingered.

A blond assistant clothed in the same, nondescript Aschen jacket and blouse stood over the machines that sounded out several readings in chirps and beeps. She entered a few commands into the digital pad she held in her left hand, then bent over slightly as she adjusted some settings on the equipment that stood behind his cot.

Then she spoke quietly as she worked, the resonant clarity of another human voice startling and unfamiliar in the dehumanised violence of this place. "Colonel Jack O'Neill."

His eyes darted to her in surprise but he said nothing in response.

The Aschen wouldn't have bothered with learning the names of their experiments. So why the sudden, personal touch?

"Colonel," the woman whispered again, this time with urgency, her lilting accent becoming more pronounced as she talked, "I don't have much time. You must listen to me carefully. You are scheduled for disposal at-"

That certainly got his attention. "What? Who are you?"

She lifted her head and took a quick glance around, speaking only when she was satisfied that no one else lingered in the vicinity.

"I am Kynal, a member of the Dalbar'ash. We oppose the Aschen for their heinous acts against many worlds. You are in a secret facility of the Aschen where they test their manufactured products on their imprisoned subjects. "

Despite what he'd guessed, hearing the words spoken aloud still sent him reeling. Jack blinked once, twice, fighting to take a breath.

"We believe we can stop them."

Her next words made him look up and despite himself, there was a ray of hope that pierced deep. "My team's still in the cell. I won't go without them," he warned.

"We are aware of that," she said seriously. "But we will begin with you."

"You have to trust me, Colonel."

Oh yeah, these were the very issues that had landed him in this. But he lay helplessly on a damn cot with no means to save himself or his team, so what did he have to lose? The sceptic in him proceeded cautiously. "Tell me what to do."

A hum coming from an unseen cluster of machinery cut through the lower register of her voice, causing her to halt mid-sentence. Kynal did another quick sweep, readjusted some dials then straightened back up.

"Colonel, you are to be kept here for the next fifteen hours, then disposed of by the orders of the Aschen. It is fortunate that we found you in time. I have lowered the levels of the bio-serum that they are giving you and in turn, increased the amount of its counteragent. It will hopefully help you to stay awake more easily and return your body to its normal state. For now."

"What?" He blinked up at her in confusion. "Awake? Normal state?"

"You will get your explanation later, Colonel," she whispered hurriedly. "But for now, we will need you to be awake and ready for us when we come."

With that cryptic ending, Kynal hurried off, walking through the thick fabric separators that rippled gently in the wake of her movements.

Minutes after she'd gone, Jack stared into the empty space where she'd stood, wondering if his mind had just conjured up a cocked plan of rescue.

He blinked the uncertainty away.

Once. Twice.

Only then did he allow his head to fall back onto the hard surface of the cot, a thousand questions racing through his sluggish mind.

* * *

**P4A-121  
Madrelan Quon'yl  
May 6, 2001**

Lucidity returned in stages, the grey hazy cloud of grogginess finally lifting by the time Kynal entered the room with another man clad in the same grey, high-collared robe.

Tension was radiating through his body, his muscles already clenched. Jack curled his fingers slowly into a fist and tried to calm his breathing.

The man carried a similar digital pad to what Kynal carried yesterday and pressed a combination of buttons that sent a whirr through the automated machines that stood by his side. The tubes that had been poked into his arms were then removed, the excess liquid mixed with his blood spilling to the floor.

Then he nodded once to the blonde.

Just as the straps that restrained Jack suddenly snapped free from unseen metal clasps, Kynal jabbed a long, thin syringe into the neck of the Aschen doctor and clapped a hand quickly over his mouth as he crumpled silently to the ground.

"Come on!"

She helped pull him up from the cot with surprising strength and tossed him a heavy jacket that she grabbed from a shelf lining the wall. Jack shrugged it on quickly as he stood, wobbling unsteadily on his feet. She lifted his arm over her shoulder in support and steered them out of his confinement area, moving past the other heavily-curtained cubicles and out to the corridor where two other men stood guard near an open door.

"Sorel! Hedin!"

Without hesitating, they relieved her of his sagging weight and moved through the door. Kynal pulled out a stun weapon, covering their backs as they exited the facility through the winding corridors that led to the north exit.

Jack shrugged off his helpers, his own strides becoming surer and faster as his legs regained their normal movements. They ran through long, identical corridors lit with bright, white lights, the differing lengths of each particular section their only markers in a maze of snares.

An unexpected slam of the heavy doors in front of them made them come to a screeching halt.

Their movements must have triggered some sort of motion alarm, Jack realised.

"Colonel!"

Jack whipped his head around to see Kynal throwing a stun weapon at him. He nodded his thanks as she gestured to the corridor on the right.

A heavy hall fell on her shoulder, halting her movements.

"The exits at the south entrance are sealed," Hedin told her quietly. "The Aschen emergency security response is immediate."

"So are the ones in the east," Sorel confirmed.

Kynal swore sharply in a language that sounded both guttural and mellifluous to Jack's ears.

"The Aschen guards would be there before us. We only have the West gate free. It's the furthest from their bureau."

Hedin was already shaking his head. "No. We will take the route part way to the gate. The Dalbar'ash's tunnel can be accessed from the twelfth wing of the storage complex and is stable enough for four men."

Realisation dawned on Kynal's face. "Go!"

They ran the next half-mile down a path, then descended the flight of stairs that lay behind a small door at the back of a ward to an obscure exit at the west side of the facility.

A blanket of white greeted them. The landscape was a disorienting blur of thickly falling snow that obscured the horizon. The biting winds of the raging blizzard flung the heavy precipitate into their faces, the chill of the atmosphere cutting straight through to skin.

Hedin gestured in a direction after he looked at a contraption that resembled a compass.

"It's not far!"

Jack followed their lead as quickly as he could, trying to ignore his knees that were protesting loudly in the sudden cold. He was breathing hard; the residual tiredness of the past few days of incarceration was now threatening to take over his body.

They burrowed through the deep snow, their progress excruciatingly slow through the increasing intensity of the storm. Still, they ploughed on, until the back exit of another building complex appeared in their line of sight.

Sorel pushed his way front and busied himself with the locking mechanism of the ammunition door. A few seconds later, it swung open with a muted creak, revealing the calm, warmer quietness of an abandoned storage space.

Jack stepped in after Kynal, feeling the instant relief on his joints and body.

He heard the click of the switch on Hedin's torch. A second later, the area was cast in pale, yellow light. Like the place they'd just escaped, this storage unit was similarly constructed with the architectural homogeneity that the Aschen favoured on this particular world.

"This is still part of the Aschen experimental facility, but it has been abandoned a year ago because of land subsidence," Kynal explained, then swept a booted foot over a specific area of the ground. "The tunnel to our dwellings is just beneath this door."

Hedin leaned down, traced a finger over the edge of a groove, then pushed a hidden switch, causing a square area of the ground to retract. He shifted the false surface with a grunt and peered into the darkness, then took the torch that Sorel handed to him.

"The subsidence hasn't affected the structural integrity of the tunnel," he reported. "The stairs are still intact."

"Good. Go, Hedin."

The man nodded and disappeared down the flight of stairs. Then Kynal turned to Sorel and shot him an unmistakable look of gratitude. "I will see you later, Sorel. Colonel, after me."

Jack shot her a lot of dry amusement, unused to following orders. But the blonde was already hurrying after Hedin, leaving him to find his own footing on the narrow flight of steps.

The view of the storage facility disappeared when Sorel stood over the retractable ceiling and shut it tight after Jack had made his way halfway down.

He went down the rest of the stairs with the help of the lone single beam from Hedin's torch that illuminated the dank tunnel.

"Colonel," Hedin called out, "it's not far now."

They've already slowed their paces, Jack realised in growing chagrin as he fought to catch up with them.

But then they'd stopped at what appeared to be a dead end of the tunnel. Only when he'd joined their sides could then he see it: a large, circular opening stood in what looked like the dead end of the tunnel.

A soft, high-pitched whine sounded from a small, black cylindrical object in Kynal's hands.

The camouflaged entrance swung inwards with surprising smoothness to reveal a sprawling, thriving underground market that was girded by the brightest, glossiest hues of red, blues and greens. Cool, spring air swished through the stands of produce and brought the fragrance of sunshine and rose to his nose. In another corner, several young women displayed their crafts that hung from ceiling to floor, their enticing smiles so incongruent with the horrors that he'd seen and experience.

If the cold, oppressive atmosphere had imbued all corners of the planet's surface, this underground world was a dizzying, unrestrained counterpoint to it – a libertarian response that made the contrast more breathtakingly astounding and damning.

Jack hung back as Kynal and Hedin were enthusiastically greeted by those who recognised them as they walked in, taking in the atypical sight of a diminutive economy left to run on its own.

Without warning, he found his hand in a smaller, more feminine one and caught a bright glint of turquoise in her distant gaze as she explained, "It is a tradition in the old world to have a time and place where everyone can meet and buy what they need. Or at least that's what Hedin says."

"Like an outdoor, weekend market?" He guessed.

The sad smile on her face lit her features nonetheless. For a spilt-second, Jack thought he saw in her face the likeness of another blond woman with wide, blue eyes and a smile that rivalled the brightest stars. Then he deliberately pushed away that image and gently extricated his hand from hers.

The woman in question wasn't here. She was light-years away, knee-deep in the Earth-Aschen negotiations and basking in the affections of another man.

Even the thought of SG-1 felt like a lifetime away.

He blinked away the stay bit of memory and saw Kynal reappear in his field of vision.

"Yes, exactly like that, before the Aschen came. What is now buried under ice used to be a city of wonders."

"What happened?" Jack pressed. "When?"

"You'll find out soon," she promised, seeing Hedin finish exchanging his pleasantries. "There's someone you should meet."

Kynal took a winding path that led out of the bustling scene into a complex of segregated halls, each held up by immense support pillars that must have been lain as the very foundation of the old city was constructed. The crowds died away, seemingly parting for a tall grey-haired man clad in a heavy jacket and tunic who met them halfway where the path turned into a grand staircase that twisted downward.

"Ferdan!"

"Kynal, Hedin," he greeted, then turned to Jack with an outstretched hand. "Welcome to the Dalbar'ash, Colonel O'Neill."

"Colonel," Hedin introduced, "May I present Ferdan, the leader of the Aschen Resistance."

* * *

**SGC  
Colorado Springs  
May 7, 2001**

"Incoming wormhole!"

Hammond abandoned the reports on his desk and hurried down the narrow stairs to the control room when the alarms rang through the base.

"Chief?"

"It's SG-15's IDC, Sir."

"Open the iris! Stand down!" The order was barked to the SFs had immediately taken their positions in the gateroom.

SG-15 stepped through the rippling wormhole a few seconds later as Hammond reached the base of the ramp.

"Welcome back, SG-15. Captain Dwight, how did it go?"

"It went well, Sir. Turenne is a recent settlement on P6C-992 and the people call themselves the Celti."

The familiar name gave Hammond pause. "Get yourselves checked out in the infirmary. Briefing immediately after that."

"Yes, Sir."

When SG-15 entered the briefing room and took their seats an hour later, Hammond was already seated at the table, poring over O'Neill's pre-mission notes on the Confederation states.

He wasted no time. "Right, people. Let's start with you, Dr. Kemp."

"P6C-992 was discovered shortly by the Celti who fled their home world by ship about a hundred of our years ago because of a terrible plague that swept their cities and villages. They initially resettled in a village which eventually grew into a town about three clicks from the Stargate. They are fairly advanced in comparison to Earth, having attained a level of technology that allows them faster-than-light travel. However, they are not as far in their advancement of medical science as we thought, which is to be expected for a society that is still rebuilding itself. They speak a language which sounds part-Irish Gaelic, but perhaps Dr. Jackson who's a linguist, would be better suited to comment on this linguistic variation or dialect."

"What else have you learnt about their history?"

"If I may, Sir?" Piece asked, then continued when the General nodded. "The first-generation survivors are unfortunately all dead and gone. But their children who grew up on Turenne remember their stories. It is said that a virulent sickness came one day on the people. They dropped like flies one by one and soon enough, all the towns and cities on the planet were infected. Those who lived in the last town that stood at the edge of their known world fled the place for P6C-992 the moment they heard of the disease. But even they weren't immune. Those who showed early symptoms of the plague after resettlement were quickly quarantined on an isolated chain of islands hundreds of miles away."

Kemp continued from where Pierce left off.

"From the inhabitants' descriptions, it sounded like a hemorrhagic virus had killed most of their population off: relatively long incubation period, highly contagious, with initial symptoms like internal bleeding and fever, rapid transmission, almost a hundred percent fatality rate. In fact, it sounds characteristic of a spreading bubonic plague. Their home planet could have been wiped out in a matter of months, if not weeks."

"There's something else, Sir," Captain Dwight interjected. "The interesting part is, they claim that a group of visitors arrived by star ships at the time of the plague, presumably to help save their planet. But their efforts were in vain. The plague had just simply spread faster."

Pierce threw his teammates a look, then said, "Sir, we have cause to believe that they were the Aschen from the way the people talked about them."

"The Aschen?" The General didn't sound too surprised.

"The description fits. Grey-clothed people. Very practically-minded, serious. They seem willing to share technology and medical aid. Things that we already know about them."

"But the Celti don't remember much of them, because they left their world after and never heard from the Aschen again."

"Major Pierce, can you say for certain that the Celti have only been on that planet for at most, a century?"

"Yes, Sir. The people, or at least the children of the first generation settlers are adamant about it, seeing as their last living survivor of the plague having died only a few years ago."

Hammond looked down at the notes he'd scribbled as the team had given their accounts.

Barely a week ago, he'd received a report from Turner about the existence of the Keltia. Now, a different SG-team had discovered the existence of the Celti in another sector of the galaxy.

What were the odds?

The similarities of their histories and their names were beyond uncanny but more than adequate to convince him of a connection between the cultures and the histories of P3W-225 and P6C-992. Yet in both Pierce's and Turner's reports lay several discrepancies, the difference in the level of technology being the most obvious.

The Celti were a relatively advanced race that had at least mastered space travel. The Keltia lived as farmers on a pre-historic world save for Aschen technology that helped them better manage the growing seasons.

In the mythology of the Keltia who lived in Verlamion, the plague that had wiped out most of the planet was a distant memory that stretched back millennia. But for those who lived on Turenne, it was factual history that had occurred only a hundred years ago.

Hammond was starting to get the feeling that the stories that the villagers told on Verlamion weren't just dinner table tales borne by the deep-seated need to celebrate or immortalise an illustrious history and sing the praises of the Aschen whose appearance was believed to have been a godsend.

What if these stories were for most part, real, despite the claim of the villagers that Aschen's medical aid hadn't been quite so effective in stopping the degradation of memory?

Was that the only thing that accounted for these differences?

And what exactly was the Aschen's involvement in these two worlds?

Hammond got the feeling that to solve this ever-growing problem of the mysteries of the Aschen, he needed the whole of SG-1 for it.

But for now, he needed the services of a certain archaeologist in particular.


	9. Twist

**Chapter 9 - Twist**

**P4A-121  
Madrelan Quon'yl  
May 7, 2001**

Jack heard the sound of footsteps that made him jerk upright in bed. Quietly, he rolled for his stun weapon and crept to the door. A quick glance around showed nothing was out of order in his quarters.

Then came a knock, followed by a quiet, muffled feminine voice calling out. "Colonel?"

Kynal.

"A minute." He put aside the weapon, stepped to the small dresser and hastily pulled a shirt over his head.

A wave of his palm over the electronic access switch made the door slide open.

"I apologise, Colonel. It's late but I was held up by a meeting with Ferdan."

"Jack," he amended her use of his rank. "The name's Jack, not Colonel."

"Were you sleeping?"

He didn't think he could. At least not properly for a long while. Not when the memory of spending most of his time as a lab rat still churned in his mind.

"No. Come in," he told her honestly, running an absent hand through his ruffled hair.

Stepping aside to let her in, he waved the door closed and walked to his small cot in the corner, sinking down into a corner.

"It's not much I know," Kynal began apologetically, mistaking his insomnia for a different reason entirely.

"No, it's not that. The quarters are great. Bed's actually comfy." His lips tilted up in irony. "And trust me, I've had way worse."

"Extreme tiredness is a common side effect after what you have been through, Jack," Kynal offered.

"Yeah, peachy," he mumbled. His body just wouldn't cooperate; the exhaustion pretty much anchored him to the bed, yet sleep mostly eluded him. Just how the hell was he going to go back for the others in this damned state?

He heard her exhale in the stillness of the night. Or at least the chronometer on the wall told him that it was past sundown.

"I imagine you'd want to hear about our history now?"

"Can't wait," he told her wryly, gesturing for her to sit, then belatedly realised there was no other surface but the other half of the bed to sit on. "You, uh, should sit down."

Kynal accepted his awkward invitation with slight amusement and settled herself down exactly where he pointed. Then, as though sensing his slight discomfort, she said, "I don't bite, Jack."

Her pointed jibe relaxed him somewhat. Humour had been sorely lacking in his life for months; for once, he was glad to hear a semblance of normal conversation.

With a small grin, he shrugged. "Shoot."

"As you have guessed, Madrelan Quon'yl is a planet dedicated to Aschen experimentation of their medicine, built on the pretence of resettling victims of disasters should they be willing to come. Many did, only to find themselves caught in a nightmare that never ends."

Jack nodded and swallowed hard. "So I heard. You were one of them?"

She twisted her fingers before looking at him with an emotion akin to sadness.

"To be honest, I don't know the answer to that question. My memories only span ten years, Jack. I only remember waking up in bed with many tubes and machines attached to me, just like you were. I think I must have spent at least a year in bed, fighting whatever illness I had," she told him hesitantly. "A doctor tended to me. He said his people were called the Aschen who were going to help those who were sick. I believed him, naïve as I had been. He was right in a way. I got better. But there were many who never did. They died, but I got stronger and stronger. Eventually, I was well enough to walk, to run, to do anything normal. The Aschen told me that I was a precious specimen, a great product of their medicine."

Jack didn't like where this was going. The Aschen's duplicitous nature ran way deeper than he'd initially suspected and he got the feeling that very soon, he was going to like it even less. When he first started out on this mission, who would have thought that it would all come to this?

"The Aschen even allowed me to work with them, to record the patients' responses to what they gave them," Kynal continued, her face carefully neutral. "But one day, I encountered a man in the guise of an Aschen assistant stealing the samples of the medicine. Thinking him a traitor, I followed him with the intention of turning him in…until I saw where he was going. He went underground, into a complex network of tunnels that looked like the cleaned-up ruins of an old city. It was a place that I had never known existed."

"Hedin?" He guessed.

"Ferdan," she smiled in remembrance. "He'd known I was behind him the whole time actually. I was surprised when he spoke to me. Then he showed me the place where a group of people gathered in revolt of the ways of the Aschen. That day, I learned that they called themselves the Dalbar'ash. People who had resisted their captors and their medicine, who escaped and lived. The Aschen had made a serious mistake in believing that they would not have lived anyway, especially in the harsh conditions of Madrelan Quon'yl. But these people, led by Ferdan, had moved underground, into the ruins of an ancient civilisation."

"So you joined them?"

"Ferdan waited until I had a secure position in the facility before he decided to reveal the presence of the Dalbar'ash. Then he convinced me that I was simply another successful experiment. In a small laboratory that he'd built, he showed me the vaccines developed by the Aschen that gradually weakened the body's natural immunity. Their effects varied. Some caused instant, violent death. Others killed you slowly by dissolving your internal organs. Then there were those that altered your memory, causing you to return to the blank state of a newborn baby. Those of us who survived were amongst whose who had various anomalies in their blood types that countered the Aschen drugs."

Jack couldn't speak.

He'd lost his voice when Kynal had started talking about the horrors of the Aschen's experimentations and their consequences. All he could do was to sit, frozen and still, as he fought to keep his tightly clasped hands from shaking uncontrollably.

"We saw you and your team in the small town that the Aschen built as an outward show of resettlement should visitors arrive. But then, it looked as though you were the first visitors who did not seem to be from the Aschen Confederation planets."

It was a while before he felt composed enough to talk. "You've given your position away by busting me out."

A slight smile lit her face. "That is because I have no intention of returning to the facility. We will be putting our plan of ending the Aschen's reign on Madrelan Quon'yl very soon."

He threw her a startled glance. "And I was part of your plan?"

She inhaled deeply and frowned, as though debating her next words. "You have a good chance of living, Jack."

His breath caught in his throat. "Living? What the hell was it that they put into me? And didn't you give me something for it?"

"The Aschen injected you with a drug that was meant to render a person less resistant to sickness. All I could do was to give you a counteragent to try and reverse the effects the day before we rescued you. You seemed to respond well to it."

The universe he thought he knew tilted on its edges, leaving his vision a fuzzy grey as the shock tore through him and left him breathing hard.

"Fuck!" Jack swore harshly then swung his angry gaze at her. "You knew this! You knew this and you didn't stop it!"

"Count yourself fortunate, Colonel," she said coolly in return. "Others have suffered far worse."

"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" He retorted sarcastically, pressing a hand over his eyes.

Her defensive stance softened upon seeing his obvious distress. "I'm sorry, Jack. Aschen wanted to know of your progress with the drug. You were being watched too closely for me to have done anything sooner."

_Goddammit_…

"Why me?" He grated out sharply, his eyes still hard.

Her answer was honest and sympathetic. "The Aschen reports seem to suggest that your blood contains a strong, resistant anomaly that the rest of your team do not carry. I'm sorry, Jack," she repeated, moving to place a light hand on his shoulder.

Strangely enough, he didn't resist, relishing the warmth of her palm seep through the thick vest he wore. Perhaps it was any sort of human touch that his subconscious had been craving.

It took him a while to see past the horror of what they'd done to him and even longer to convince himself that Kynal hadn't been deliberately complicit in what they did.

"I'm sorry. In fact, I should be thanking you," Jack said quietly, struggling to compose himself. "It's just...it's just that I never thought I'd be going out this way."

"I think that last sentence speaks for us all. I remember feeling that way when Ferdan first talked to me. Angry…incredulous…sad," Kynal said softly in reminiscence. She paused for a moment, allowing Jack a moment to gather his thoughts, then continued in a steadier voice, "For you, it is still early days yet. Aschen medicine mostly works in the long term. If you really do find yourself getting better, then the counteragent was successful in reversing the vaccine's effect."

_And if not?_ The question lay at the tip of his tongue, unvoiced.

But Kynal hadn't needed to provide an answer to something they both already knew.

He had always assumed that he would die a soldier. In enemy crossfire, or as a military captive wasting from endless days of torture in an Iraqi prison, or more recently, in the explosion of a Goa'uld Ha'tak or from the fatal blow of a staff weapon.

And if he were honest enough, it could have also ended with a gunshot to his brain.

But never as a lab rat among a thousand others.

Yet, the fear of death was one Jack thought he'd firmly conquered after several early Black ops missions. All that had mattered was his ability to haul his team's asses back in a piece, even if that had meant them going back without him. But when it'd happened that one time in a place far from home, he'd learnt that there were some things worse than a heart that had stopped beating.

Forcing himself back to the issue, Jack pressed on, suddenly wanting to know more about their survival against all odds. "How did you manage? For the past ten years, or more?"

"Our numbers grew, especially those who were scheduled for disposal but were very much alive. It took a bit of effort but we found them and brought them here. Some still died from the effects of the Aschen experiments. But Ferdan was determined that our world underground was not going to resemble a pauper's hole. Using technology that had been painstakingly put together by foraging through the ruins of the old city, he and some others had given us the possibilities of growing certain produce underground with artificial lighting and fresh, warm air. Ferdan wanted life to go on, with people keeping their traditions as they remembered. But even that, he knew, was going to be temporary. The market you saw was in fact, our very last."

Jack looked at her with growing interest. "What do you mean?"

"In the ten years that I can remember, there had only been one goal that Ferdan worked towards. He wanted to destroy the Aschen experimental facility and weaken the Aschen influence on this world."

"Ten long years." Jack whistled low under his breath.

"The ten years of which I remember," she corrected him ruefully. "Most likely more. But that is Ferdan's story to tell if he wishes to do so."

Jack gave her a nod of acceptance then turned his thoughts to his teammates. "My team's still in the hellhole. I haven't forgotten that."

"I never expected you to. There is a plan, if you wish to be a part of it. The strike against the Aschen begins in thirty hours. All capable persons are invited to join. Thus far, no one has refused. You will be called to our last meeting before it happens. Ferdan will explain it all to you."

His quiet acknowledgement drifted away on a sigh. "Yeah."

She patted his hand lightly and got to her feet. "I need to go. Rest well, Jack."

When Jack finally lifted his eyes to her blue ones in gratitude, it was all he could do not to think of Carter.

"Thank you."

* * *

**SGC  
Colorado Springs  
May 8, 2001**

Daniel was breathing as hard as she had been when he skidded to a stop in front of Hammond's office, the puzzled look on his face turning into a look of surprise when he saw her waiting impatiently for him.

"Sam!" He exclaimed, "any idea what this might be about?"

Through the glass windows of the room, the General looked up from his stack of reports and waved them in.

Sam gestured in the direction of Hammond's office, trailing his eager footsteps. "I guess we're going to find out."

Hammond himself yanked the door open for them, then moved swiftly back to his table. "Come in, Major, Dr. Jackson."

"Sir?"

"Close the door and take a seat."

Sam obeyed Hammond's curt order and slowly lowered herself in the seat next to Daniel.

As unusual as the General's summons had been in the early hours of the morning, it was with some measure of annoyance and curiosity that she'd hurriedly abandoned her simulations and charged up the levels to his office.

"I am going to present a scenario to you, Dr. Jackson," Hammond said, wasting no time in handing them each a report as he watched similar expressions of puzzlement and interest appear on their faces. "And I would like to know your professional and academic assessment of the situation."

Sam quickly flipped through the pages in the folder, immediately noticing a peculiarity in the reports. "Sir, the dates and planet designations are blanked out."

Hammond nodded. "That's how I want it for now, Major."

"If I'm reading this right, General," Daniel supplied after a minute of reading, "there's a comparison here we're supposed draw between the similar cultures that exist on two different planets. And in this case, the Keltia and the Celti."

The archaeologist's astute observation made Hammond purse his lips in a tight smile and steeple his hands on his table. "Exactly, Dr. Jackson. What do you think?"

"At first glance, I would go as far as to say that these people share the same ancestral history, General. At some point in time, there must have been a mass exodus of people from their original planet and in this case, most likely because of the effects of the plague. The identical names give us the first clue. The spelling is only a variation but the pronunciation is the same," Daniel pointed out, his gestures growing animated as he spoke. "It is a known fact that when individuals migrate, they do not leave their beliefs, nor their cultural identities behind, no matter what the circumstances are of their migration. It does seem to apply to the Celti, who found themselves in a unique situation on an uninhabited planet where acculturation or assimilation wasn't needed. So all they did was to carry on as they'd lived on their original home planet. From there onwards however, they would have evolved differently from their ancestors the Keltia."

"What about the vast differences in technology and living conditions?" Sam asked.

"Frankly, I'm not too sure what might precisely account for these differences. But the Celti's history before they move to Turenne seems to corroborate the Keltia's account. Well, at least all the way up to the plague."

"Are you saying that both worlds share the same history and the same memories of the plague?" Hammond sought to clarify.

"I think so," Daniel said, then rushed to explain. "Groups of people involved in conflict form collective memories about what they experience. We're talking about focused, institutionalised remembrance that is subsequently transmitted through socio-political and cultural channels. Even through education systems, this memory is imparted to new generations. In the reports, the plague is a defining event for both the Keltia and the Celti. Seeing as both accounts seem to correspond with each other, there's a very strong case here for Verlamion as their original home world."

"But accounts of the plague differ," Sam interjected.

Daniel shrugged. "Temporal distance can have an effect on distorting the memory of the event or even the time period in which it occurred, particularly if the culture is more reliant on oral traditions than on the written word."

Sam cut in, "I think I know what you mean, Daniel. In terms of technology development, it's possible that the total destruction by the plague on the original Keltia homeworld had forced the entire world to rebuild their civilisation from scratch. Whereas, the Celti who fled had brought remnants of their technology to their new world. In both cases, their starting points differ."

"This just occurred to me, Sam," Daniel put in thoughtfully, "According to the Keltia on Verlamion, the Aschen had been there for millennia. Why then, did they remain agrarian for this entire period with no progress in their civilisation?"

"Maybe there was no agreement to share technology." She grimaced, knowing that the argument sounded lame. "Frankly, I can't give a good enough reason for it."

Daniel was already shaking his head in disagreement. "It doesn't make sense. You'd expect a measure of advancement, like perhaps, the evidence of town planning at least, to make way for population growth. General Hammond, the collective memory of the Celti and the Keltia aside, I think an obvious point here is also that they both seemed to have met the Aschen about the time the plague occurred."

Hammond nodded. "The plague and the arrival of the Aschen are two unmistakable occurrences in these reports, just as you have observed. At this point in time, I'm going to reveal that the report on Keltia came from P3W-225 and was given by Colonel O'Neill's team. The second report on the Celti was given by SG-15 on their most recent recon trip to P6C-992. Two different planets that have given similar yet conflicting reports on visitors we think are the Aschen."

The sudden mention of the Colonel's name caused Sam to freeze. What was O'Neill's involvement in this?

"P3W-225?" She asked uneasily. "That's an Aschen Confederation planet, if I remember this correctly, Sir. And," she continued hesitantly, "the only way Colonel O'Neill would have found out about the Keltia was if he had gone off-world for the specific purpose of visiting the Confederation states."

"That is right, Major," Hammond confirmed. "Colonel O'Neill came to see me privately nearly three weeks ago because he felt that the Earth-Aschen alliance warranted closer examination. The short story is, he requested to take a team through the gate for the express purpose of visiting the worlds that the diplomatic delegates from Earth did not visit."

"Sir, SG-1 could have gone with him," Sam said quietly. Confusion warred with the hurt of betrayal, or so said the sharp pang in her chest. Had O'Neill so completely lost his trust in them that he would have had taken another team than his own? The one with which he'd literally gone through hell and high water?

"That was what I said. But it was the Colonel's request to bring team members with specific experience in special reconnaissance and who also had some form of broad-based academic knowledge of the humanities and the social sciences. It was also my order that Teal'c accompanied him."

Hammond hadn't needed to say what they've already known. Officially, the Colonel's reasons for wanting a different team on this series of missions had to do with his reservations about the Aschen; unofficially, they had just as much to do with the undercurrent of distrust that ran through SG-1. O'Neill couldn't have operated within a team whose members had constantly questioned his judgement and decisions the past few months. Especially not when his leadership was tainted by what they'd long perceived as deep bias against a potential Earth ally.

Sam deflated slightly at Hammond's words; a few weeks without the team intact had been a lot more difficult than she cared to admit. Although she'd been well aware of the friction that lay between them, she hadn't thought that the Colonel's abrupt departure might have been an implicit move for the breakup of SG-1.

But Colonel O'Neill owed her no explanations for his actions. Every reminder of his unannounced departure stung as painfully as the day she found out he'd left. She should have known that he wouldn't have had ignored his strong convictions even when he'd been shut down by everyone, including his own team whom he trusted to watch his six. His decision to leave on a covertly-sanctioned mission with another team that he'd formed himself merely demonstrated how much that trust had been worn down.

It left her feeling more than a little ashamed. Hammond had been the first and perhaps, only person to demonstrate his confidence in the Colonel when SG-1 had all but derided O'Neill's stand against the Aschen.

"Jack doesn't trust us," Daniel said flatly. "And neither does he trust the Aschen."

Sam sighed. "Can you blame him, Daniel? After we, his team, failed to even listen to him."

"But Sam, Jack isn't the-"

Hammond cut in. "Dr. Jackson, I know what it looks like to you. To be fair to Colonel O'Neill, he is just doing his job to uncover any possible risks to Earth that we might have missed. The fact is, I approved this covert operation because I believe the Colonel could provide a balanced report on the Aschen based on his interactions with the people of the other Confederation plants."

"With all due respect, Sir, why are you telling us this now?"

"Because I believe Colonel O'Neill and his team may have found something."

Hammond leaned slightly forward on the table, meeting two pairs of serious eyes. "The existence of an eighteenth Aschen planet has been revealed by one of the natives on P3A-220."

Sam sat back in shock, flicking her gaze to Daniel, seeing the archaeologist return an equally troubled glance at her. "That planet was never mentioned at any point during our negotiations."

Two deep creases found their marks on Daniel's forehead. "Why would they hide this piece of information?"

"That's what I want to know too," Hammond replied. "Colonel O'Neill is at present, on this world."

"Sir, permission to gate-" Her hurried outburst was unceremoniously halted mid-sentence.

"Denied, Major," Hammond said firmly, seeing the glimpse of disappointment that Carter carefully filed away on her face. "In Colonel O'Neill's pre-mission report, he listed the number of planets that he and his team had intended to visit. I would like you both and SG-3 to start with the last planet on Colonel O'Neill's list and move up from there. Your first destination will be P3A-194, the people whom we know as the Volians, at least, according to the Aschen report."

"In essence, we're undertaking the last part of Jack's missions, under the pretext of getting to know our allied friends better?" Daniel asked.

"In fact, Dr. Jackson, I want you to dig a little deeper. Find out from the Volians if the Aschen are the good neighbours they seem to be. I have word from my sources that many of the Aschen leaders on their Confederation planets are on Earth as part of the negotiations. Which means it is also less likely to arouse any suspicion should you appear on any of these worlds during this period of time. Clear your schedules. You gate out in six hours."

Daniel silently nodded his assent, the frown never leaving his face as he stood up and turned to leave.

Sam was about to follow him out when Hammond spoke again. "Major Carter? I'd like a word."

With a small, imperceptible nod to Daniel, Sam settled back in her seat, looking up at Hammond only to see an expression resembling a grimace crossing his face before he spoke. "I don't have to remind you that this calls for discretion, Major. Ambassador Faxon is not privy to any of this information, despite his level of clearance and his part in the official negotiations."

Sam flushed at Hammond's indirect reprimand. Had it all been so obvious? Those small moments with Joe that she thought she'd kept professional?

"You have my word, Sir."

"And Major?"

His contemplative tone gave her pause. "Sir?"

"I have faith in Colonel O'Neill. SG-1 should, too."

At that, she felt the heaviness lift marginally, buoyed by the General's own cautious optimism. Her response was heartfelt, reflecting that deep yearning for a team that hadn't, in all senses, been altogether cohesive for many weeks.

"I do too, Sir."


	10. Motion

**Chapter 10 - Motion**

**P4A-121  
Madrelan Quon'yl  
May 8, 2001**

A holographic representation of Madrelan Quon'yl dominated the space above the briefing table, its blue hues casting a ghostly tinge on the thick, concrete beams that supported the underground chamber.

"This computer's analysis shows that the Aschen converted this planet into a frozen wasteland several thousand cycles ago as a deterrent for visitors. By using technology that manipulated gravitational pulls of its two moons, they were able to rotate the planet's poles in order to yield a complete climatic change within a period of hundred cycles. The surface as you know, is covered entirely by thick, frozen ice, but under the planet's crust there exists a molten metallic core, a small percentage of which is made up of unstable deposits of Naquadria and Cuperlon. This abnormality in the planet's core is going to play a vital role in our mission."

Rapt interest made Jack unconsciously lean forward as he intently listened to Ferdan's exposition of the planet's structure. Even as a participant who stood at the fringes of this operation, it was difficult not to marvel at the amount of research and planning that had gone into it.

By his side, Hedin shifted and murmured, "If this takes you by surprise, you'll soon come to realise that this group will never stop surprising you. Not with how much they can do with so little. "

Jack merely gave a small nod in reply. Hedin's words had struck a less-than pleasant chord, an untimely reminder of the other half of SG-1 that he'd left back in Colorado Springs.

They'd once been that. And more.

Formidable enough to be considered a threat by the System Lords, indefatigable in the numerous times they'd saved the world. Yet all it had taken was a manipulative race to shatter those bonds to dust and prove that the incorruptibility of SG-1 was more myth than reality.

Jack blinked the stray thoughts away and forced his eyes back to the screen.

Ferdan's light touch on the holograph dissolved the image and brought up a magnified version of the third vent that cracked the planet's surface.

"The presence of these elements has added a measure of instability to the surface crust, subsequently causing fissures to open up steam vents in these three places, the most important of them being the large vent that runs deep down across the north complex of the Aschen facility. If you look at this particular section of the vent," he paused and enlarged the surface area of the planet once again, "you will notice that there is great pressure that has been placed on it because of the steady increase and expansion of gases. A sudden release of this pressure will cause the crust to rupture at this particular point, thereby pulling the entire facility into its molten core."

Quiet murmurs filled the room. Yet Ferdan patiently waited for those had turned to each other and were conversing in hushed tones.

"What is going to be the trigger for the venting of pressure?"

A question echoed from the back of the chamber and reached the front of the room as a disembodied entity that Jack strained to pick up. Yet Ferdan and Hedin seemed to have no trouble hearing, he noted with some surprise. Had that been a by-product of their-

Hedin's reply scattered Jack's musings. "An overload of negative Cuperlon particles will force this element to react with Naquadria, causing an expansion of a newly-formed compound which will then rapidly rise to the surface. But only an Aschen computer can provide an efficient and rapid delivery system to bring about this result."

Ferdan continued from where Hedin left off. "Kynal and Sorel will be accessing the Aschen computer systems from the north complex at two hours before sunrise tomorrow. Once the Cuperlon particles are introduced to the vent, crust rupture will occur in approximately thirty minutes. The Dalbar'ash's southern, northern and eastern network of tunnels will be obliterated by the explosion. Only the western network that lies the greatest distance from the blast radius will remain unaffected. We have already relocated all of our people onto a portion of the surface that is an independent sector of the planet's crust, except for those who have chosen to be part of this operation."

"How will you escape in time?" Another voice called out from the back.

A meaningful pause settled over the room as Jack watched Ferdan and his most trusted advisors silently exchange a look.

"We will not."

The sudden roar of protest was deafening, quieting down only after Ferdan held up a hand.

The pained regret in his voice was obvious to all. "The Aschen guards will kill us even if the explosion does not. This is the only guarantee of a new life away from Aschen dominance."

"Okay, that's a bad plan," Jack cut in immediately, ignoring the attention he was getting from the entire room. "Look, at least try to increase the chances of your survival so that you can actually lead your flock to greener pastures. What good would it do if you toss the Aschen out on their asses and not reap the fruits of your labour?"

"Have you thought of something else?"

"Then give us a better idea."

All over, variations of the question were yelled out.

Jack thought on his feet, wondering if the half-baked plan he'd started formulating during the briefing would actually work. SG-1 had always escaped by the skin of their teeth even when the odds were overwhelmingly against them. Not that he tempted – or even believed in – fate, but why wouldn't things work out?

"It'll work," he argued, "if there aren't too many of you involved in this. One or two of you will take care of the explosion, another two can come with me to get my team and we'll go through the Stargate together and take several hops to cover our tracks until we reach Earth."

"Is there more to this plan?" Ferdan asked evenly.

"There is a chance that the explosion will bury the portal."

Kynal spoke for the first time, the disbelief in her voice obvious to all. "You want us to settle on Earth? And abandon our people?"

Jack shook his head, ignoring the rest of the questions for now. "It'll only be temporary," he told her. "We have many addresses of other planets far from the Aschen worlds where you can settle. Trust me, we've done this before for folks who have lost their homes. We can and will relocate your people to another friendly planet, only that this time you'll have a home with beaches and blue skies. We also have allies who can help. Just sayin', you know. And whether the gate explodes or not, the question is, are you willing to take that risk, no matter how big it is?"

This time, brief silence descended following his pronouncement, the collective murmurs among the resistance members growing in volume. From beside him, he heard Hedin's sudden, soft intake of breath.

"We never knew that the portal went to other places other than the Aschen-controlled worlds," Sorel murmured in awe.

To his surprise, Jack found himself looking into tear-filled blue eyes as Kynal turned to him. "Could you really do that? Take us somewhere else?"

In a flash, understanding dawned. In his haste, he'd come up with something he assumed was simply a way of minimising the number of fatalities in this short, intense strike. He knew that the people needed their leaders; his offer of relocation was merely an intention of keeping the flock close to their shepherds.

Inadvertently, he realised that he'd given them something more than a logistical solution.

Hope. He'd given them hope.

But as it had always been in his life, hope was a dangerous thing. It led to outcomes that were almost never in his favour and often left him in a worse place than before he'd even dared to hope.

Yet only god knew how much these people needed something beyond this hell.

Jack held Kynal's solemn gaze with uncharacteristic seriousness.

"Yeah sure, you betcha'."

* * *

**P3A-194  
Volia  
May 9, 2001**

"SG-3 will form a perimeter around the gate for a period of three hours until you check back in with us. This will be extended to a maximum of another two hours if necessary."

"Thanks, Sir," Sam said to Albert Reynolds and turned to the archaeologist who was already scanning the horizon with his binoculars. "Let's go, Daniel."

They walked the edge of a yellow field, keeping their eyes on the distant tree line as their strides quickly ate up the distance.

Daniel was first to break the contemplative silence that had befallen them. "Never thought that anything could go wrong with the Aschen."

The resignation in his voice halted her perusal of the landscape and made her determined strides falter.

Her reply was a long time in coming, knowing what she was about to say was the closest she'd come to admitting this aloud to someone else. "You're not the only one, Daniel. Only the Colonel had his doubts and we pushed him aside because someone else offered a solution that now looks too good to be true."

Daniel had stopped beside her, his own voice troubled. "It's a question I keep asking myself, Sam. Have we really been that naïve? Why are we so quick to trust a superior race promising improvement for all humankind and so slow to trust those with whom we served?"

"I don't know, Daniel," Sam said a bit too sharply, causing Daniel to pin her with an assessing stare. Ignoring his pointed gaze, she continued, "Maybe it is because they offered an easy way out for the world's problems. Because in the four years since we've started this, we're seeing no end to a war with an alien race that has dominated much of this galaxy for eons."

And, a part of her whispered softly, because she had been so caught up with the Ambassador's attentions that it had made it easier for her to overlook just what the Colonel had been saying about the Aschen, despite his fervent, eloquent arguments of which she normally would have taken heed. Sam bit her lip, willing that particular, unspoken insight away. At the very least, she was willing to admit that the Colonel had much to do with her apparent inability to form meaningful relationships. And if she were perfectly honest, it was the unconscious, lingering hope of _him_ – of them – that had made her pull back from a perfectly eligible man like Joe.

"I know I badly wanted things to change." Daniel's musings pulled her out of her troubled, wayward thoughts.

"Huh?"

"I wanted to see a better, brighter future for Earth," he clarified pointedly. "And I don't think I'm too wrong in saying that most of us wanted the same thing."

She caught on quickly. _Right. That. _

Her returning smile was wry and ironic. But as much as they could go in circles rationalising their fears and expectations, this was neither the time nor the place for hard soul-searching.

Sam hefted her P-90 more securely in her hand as she resumed walking, trying to keep a wary eye on a seemingly peaceful agricultural landscape. "Look, Daniel, we don't have time for this right now."

Daniel nodded his acquiescence, started behind her, then stopped again. "Sam, there's a farmer in the distance."

She craned her neck to see a man who was hunched over a metal protrusion of sorts a few metres away.

"Let's go."

* * *

After introducing himself as Keel, the farmer had immediately ushered them to his modest home where they sat nursing cups of a tea-like infusion grown from the red bushes that lined his small garden.

Sam took her tentative first sip of the purple liquid. "Thanks for bringing us here, Keel."

The man was still dressed in the heavy clothing that he wore to the fields, watching with satisfaction as Daniel downed the contents of his own cup.

"It is never a problem. We seldom have visitors coming this way," Keel shrugged, smiling. "So everyone who comes to Volia always gets invited to our houses. I just happen to see the visitors first because my dwelling is closest to the portal."

"How many are there of your kind on this world?" Daniel asked.

"We're scattered all over the place and because we've got large farms, it's hard to keep count," the farmer replied. Then giving into his curiosity, he asked, "What's your business here anyhow? To trade with us? The Aschen ha-"

"Actually, not really," Daniel hastily said, then amended, "well, not yet at least. In fact, we're just recently acquainted with the Aschen and would like to know more about their place in your lives."

Keel was more than happy to talk. "They've been friends to us since I remember. I'm an orphan but was raised by an Aschen family. They give us medicine and machines freely, providing abundant light and heat for our homes."

"Really? So, they've never been…unreasonable with your people in any way?"

Daniel's deliberate choice of words gave Keel pause. "They just float around in their harvesters mostly, what few of them there are. But they're not always here. We're left alone most of the time until the harvest rolls around and we need their help. So if you want to meet them-"

"We don't have to, Keel," Sam put in quickly. "We're just interested in visiting the scenic worlds of the Aschen Confederation."

"They are beautiful worlds, Samantha," Keel agreed wholeheartedly. "But there is nothing like home. And I've been here all my life. The fields, the sun, the sky. I will never tire of these sights."

Sam stole a quick glance at her watch and saw that they'd spent nearly a half hour far from where they wanted to be. She made a move to get up, seeing Daniel mimicking her movements from the corner of her eye. "Anyway, I'm afraid our time's up here. But thank you for everything."

"Not a problem. My only regret is that you aren't going to stay any longer," Keel said, then looked as though he remembered something he'd forgotten to add. "Oh, the next you see and speak to an Aschen, tell him I've got an iron root in my south field. I can't dig it out myself. Need one of their machines."

Sam and Daniel exchanged glances.

"Maybe we can help," Daniel offered after a beat.

"Actually, you passed it on the way here. It's in the way of my planting."

"We'll try our best," Sam reassured him.

Keel looked grateful. "I'll bring you there."

* * *

The visible portion of the protrusion was akin to the top half of an iceberg, the remainder of the girder going much deeper into the ground than Daniel had expected. He removed his worn, miniature set of archaeological tools, knelt on the dry mud and started to dig. Sam got on her knees next to him, helping to shovel dirt out of the way.

"We're going to need some time, Keel."

To their relief, the farmer was already starting to head in another direction, content to leave them to their own devices. "There's a jug of my best sweet water in it for you if you manage."

"Got it," Daniel grunted his exhaustion, pushing the sand and rust deposits as much as he could to one side. "It took a load of effort but I've loosened the rocks and sediment that have been causing the iron girder to-" He broke off abruptly, staring into the small gap created by the small rock fall. "Uh, what's that?"

She peered into the hole they'd created, then straightened back up. "Looks like a cave. And it goes deep. Deeper than we think. And the iron girder leads all the way down."

Daniel didn't need to think. "I'm going down."

"Me too. I'll be right behind you."

After sending a quick message to Reynolds about their unexpected find in the fields, she followed him down, her hands tightly gripping the rusted metal structure that had become flimsy in parts.

Her feet touched hard ground a minute later, her torch already in hand and switched on.

The shaft of light from the surface illuminated the cavernous space that was littered with what resembled industrial detritus. Several rusted steel bars similar to the one they just climbed down were tilted precariously to one side, while others had collapsed into the rubble.

The realisation came to her after a few seconds. The bars weren't just iron girders; they seemed to be part of the major scaffolding of a collapsed building. In fact, the scaffolding pierced the ground, going even deeper from where they stood.

"Looks like an abandoned city," Sam commented, dusting the remnants of the reddish-brown Volian soil off her BDUs. "Or one that just fell into ruins." Then she signalled Daniel to look at the structures. "It seems as though we're only standing on the highest buried layer."

Daniel frowned, circling each one carefully, then squatted to take a closer look.

"It's not impossible," he finally said, his soft reply sounding harsh in the dusty silence. "Heinrich Schliemann found the ruins of not just one city, but the remains of eleven cities, each one built on the ruins of the earlier settlements in his search for the lost city of Troy. The same thing could have happened here." Then he stood up gingerly, casting another glance around him. "The level of technology appears to be similar to early twentieth-century Earth. I'd say circa 1910."

"War? Natural disasters?" She guessed.

"Barring natural disaster, it generally takes the forces of nature several centuries to bury a city. This place looks like it was just ploughed over recently."

"Volia today is agrarian. Maybe the city was buried or abandoned so that farmland could be created."

Daniel was already shaking his head. "It makes no sense. Why would they return to agriculture after all the economic and cultural progress the Volian civilisation had made? The only reason – and a farfetched one at that – that I could possibly think of is that the Volians could have had their version of a Luddite movement. There's something else strange here, Sam. Look around you. There are no human remains. The question is, why?"

"That's what we're going to find out, Daniel." Sam was starting to pick her way through the fallen columns and the partially-crushed scaffolding. "There's something else ahead."

A sweep of her torch lit a path up to a circular, ornate entrance framed by thick, broken columns.

"This looks like it may have been a public building of some sort. I'm going to go inside and take a look around."

The door that stood at the top of the stairs opened easily with a creak and a puff of thick dust when Daniel leaned his entire body weight against it. He stumbled into the darkness, barely missing a pile of loose rocks that had fallen near the entrance.

"Rocks, rocks and more rocks," Daniel muttered the O'Neill-ism to himself, wandering the edges of an uncluttered area, not liking the creaks that the ceiling seemed to be making. Then he called out to Sam, "I think this place used to be an archiving office or a public library."

Sam's voice floated through to him from a distance, sharp and loud. "Daniel, the building's unstable. By opening the door, you've displaced some rocks that have been holding up its foundations. Get out of there!"

What was it that he'd just seen? "Just a minute, Sam."

He cast a frenzied look around, his gaze finally coming to rest on a pile of…tubes that lay undisturbed in the corner, just an inch beyond his reach.

"Now, Daniel!"

Her warning didn't register; instead, he found himself gingerly crawling towards the cardboard tubes, reaching just a bit beyond-

"Daniel!"

The ominous creak became the start of a rumble. A small rock came loose from the ceiling just as he grabbed all the tubes that his arms could carry.

A second, small rock fell on the side of his boot. The third piece of disintegrating concrete bounced off his shoulder. The fourth and fifth followed, until the slight, bouncing noises became a cackling stream of loose rock.

_Shit_. That was too close. "Got it!"

His triumphant yell was lost in the rockfall.

Daniel had barely managed to fling himself out of the entrance and down the steps just as the rocks came down in a steady flow. A rough hand yanked him up by his collar as he scrambled to his feet and ran like hell back to the space where they'd started.

"Let's not try that again, shall we?" The reproach in her voice was obvious as he tried to catch his breath. She was looking cautiously around, apparently satisfied that this particular part of the cavern was still sufficiently stable.

Daniel shot Sam a brief, contrite look and walked to the nearest slab of rock to examine the cardboard cylinders. From their openings, he pulled out several pieces of yellowed paper and spread them as evenly as he could.

Curiosity overtook annoyance as she came to stand next to him. "What have you got?"

Not answering yet, he examined the sheaves carefully. Fragile sheets of papers printed in the layout of a news journal, pictures paginated neatly underneath bold headlines in an old serif font. All of which had faded badly.

"Okay, if I'm right, these are newspapers."

"The pictures and text are too faint to make out," Sam said, then grimaced in worry when another faint rumble echoed in the distance. "Daniel, we should continue this on the surface. After that rock slide, I can't speak for the structural integrity of this place even though it seems stable for now."

"Sam, I know, but we can't." They didn't have a choice, did they? They had to take the risk here, in a disintegrating archaeological find, where they were ironically safer than on the surface where Aschen presence was unavoidable.

"You sure about that?"

"Yeah," he affirmed. "If these scrolls don't serve our purposes, we're going to have to take another look around in order to be more thorough in our search. And if the Aschen really do have something to hide, I don't think we're going to get a second chance," Daniel insisted, already rummaging through the rest of the cardboard tubes and sorting them by the legibility of their typefaces. "I'll make it quick. You could help me. We're looking for the big headlines first."

She held up a sheet that had the clearest printing. "Look at this one."

Daniel muttered the headlines aloud, letting the sounds of the words sink in.

"The language seems to be similar to an ancient Celtic text I found in Wales. I should be able to make some of this out. Okay, it says something about pandemic, some sort of – I can't translate that – maybe fever. Now, assuming the Aschen are the newcomers in this article, they provided – can't translate that word either – a sort of vaccine. And the Volian people were immensely grateful for it."

"So there's the implication that the Aschen had helped them," Sam pointed out, still uncertain where this was all going.

"Actually, all it proves is that the city was abandoned sometime after they made contact with the Aschen," he objected. "Cities are usually abandoned when civilisations fall. Why would the Volian civilisation crumble after meeting them? What had happened in between?"

"Perhaps the Volians relocated somewhere else within the Aschen Confederation and Keel is merely a resettler here," she told him bluntly, then added, "As far-fetched as this sounds, I'm going to have to play devil's advocate for a while, Daniel as much as I don't like this. We've got to be absolutely sure."

"Keel said he'd never been anywhere else."

"And how long had the city been abandoned for Keel to have lived this way all his life?"

Daniel changed tack. "Don't you get the feeling that we're somewhere close, but not quite finding anything?"

She nodded wordlessly, the ensuing silence standing between them like a monument to their growing uncertainty.

It was broken only by a loud rumble reverberating through the cavern, effectively snapping them out of the moment.

"That's our sign. "No arguments this time, Daniel."

Daniel nodded, hurriedly stood and packed. "You aren't getting any from me there. I'm going to bring these things back and hopefully get a better handle on the language so it'll give us more insight into Volian history."

They made it to the surface just as the inner chamber walls of the public building caved in, the dust plume rising up the small channel and dissipating into the gentle breeze that caressed the Volian fields. The iron girder that annoyed Keel had merely been wedged deeper into the hard surface of the ground and now lay more horizontal than it did before.

There was no one to be seen, which certainly worked to their advantage, Sam thought as the familiar blue puddle sprang to life.

"Okay Daniel, dial us home. I'm going to radio SG-3 right now."

The Volian farmer wasn't around; he would know instantly from the iron structure protruding from the ground that it hadn't been removed. And upsetting him with their sudden disappearance, unfortunately, was also the least of her worries. He'd get by.

Earth, unfortunately, might not.


	11. Flight

**Chapter 11 - Flight**

**P4A-121  
Madrelan Quon'yl  
May 9, 2001**

Jack heard her approach before she even spoke, but only turned around after she did.

"Am I disturbing?"

His response was a careless shrug, a casual invitation. "Not really. Just taking some time out."

In the old days, he would have taken a few minutes alone somewhere just before a mission, burning through half a dozen cigarettes as he pulled a fine-toothed comb through every conceivable scenario and its potential ramifications. Such periods of solitude were harder to come by since he'd joined the SGC and quit smoking altogether, but that life now looked distant enough for those old habits to unconsciously return.

Kynal sat down next to him on an abandoned concrete bench some tunnels away from their living quarters.

"The gathering is in five minutes in the other direction."

He twisted his fingers restlessly, wishing he had some nicotine in his system. "Yeah, I know."

"Nervous?"

He shot her a well-practiced, innocent look. "Who, me?"

Kynal shook her head in amusement at his deflection. "I'm surprised you found this place. It is seldom used, but I come here sometimes."

"So I'm sitting in your seat?"

She eyed him with curiosity and fondness. "I still cannot believe that you have offered to re-home all of us. You have my endless gratitude."

All he did was to give her was a small smile in return, an action that prompted her to lean in closer and place a light, chaste kiss on his cheek.

Jack turned in surprise, only to freeze when their lips met softly.

Her fingers lingered on the side of his face, trailing down the chiselled line of his jaw, then curled away from him. He pulled away abruptly, her delicate touch of affection causing a deep burn in his chest when all he could feel was the sudden, despairing loss of another woman who looked like her.

Resolutely, he looked away, refusing to meet her eyes. Looking at anything other than her look of hurt surprise.

Was it just a simple, uncomplicated display of gratitude on her part? Or did it have more to do with the life-changing event that was about to take place, a desperate desire for human contact when there was every possibility they didn't live through it?

There and then, he decided that it must have been just a physical expression of thanks, an outpouring of emotions that were simply too close to the surface for words.

Yet, to dismiss her advances as a by-product of the extraordinary circumstances in which they found themselves seemed somehow…belittling. And unfair.

Kynal saw his hesitation and gave him a small smile. "Jack, it's nothing."

But it clearly wasn't.

"Kynal…I…there is something…I-" He tried and failed, helplessly wordless when it came to those for whom he cared more than he was supposed to.

The blonde shook her head and got to her feet, resolutely refusing to meet his eyes. "It's alright, Jack. See you in the last briefing."

Her receding footsteps caused Jack to shut his eyes in consternation at the awkwardness of the situation. He doubtlessly admired all that she was – a capable, compassionate, brave survivor of unspeakable horrors – and it helped that she was so very easy on the eyes. And despite the imbecilic denseness that made up part of the front he had going for him in the SGC, he still hadn't suspected a damned thing about any interest she seemed to have in him up until a minute ago.

Was it merely attraction on her part? Or something that…ran somewhat deeper?

Jack didn't know, nor did he want to begin to guess. How could his inadequate feelings match hers when he was still spending time in purgatory paying for the _thing_ he'd developed for his untouchable and unattainable second IC?

And if it was what he thought he knew she was seeking, he didn't think he could give it to her.

At least not yet. Not until he could think of Carter and Faxon in the same sentence without wanting to bolt or throw up.

Sighing, Jack stood and walked in the same direction Kynal went a few minutes earlier. There was no way he could have ever satisfactorily explained the complicated mess he was in and all the baggage that he lugged around.

Right now, his loyalty and his friendship had to be sufficient recompense for his own gratitude to her.

The few, quiet conversations stuttered to a halt when he entered the meeting place just as Ferdan stood to address his small audience. There were only four others who were going to do this with him, just as he'd requested – four of the resistance leaders who would set their plan in motion, pull his team out and gate to Earth.

"Jack."

He turned to Ferdan, returned the greeting and took his place next to Sorel, studiously avoiding Kynal's knowing gaze.

"Today is the day we earn our freedom." The leader's quiet voice was at odds with the weighty significance of his words. "In the twenty years that we have spent working to build the Dalbar'ash in order to eliminate the Aschen presence on this world, we never expected to enjoy the fruits of our labour with the rest of our people. Colonel Jack O'Neill has changed all of that," Ferdan paused and looked at Jack directly. "Above all, we want to say thank you. Even though we might still lose our lives while running to freedom. Because you have given us the chance to live. And I think I speak for the Dalbar'ash when I say that we are in your debt."

A dull flush crept up his neck as Jack felt the congratulatory claps on his back that Sorel and Hedin were giving him, uncomfortable with the messianic label that they were placing on him. Yet their confidence in turn buoyed his flagging spirits and for the first time since he found himself brokenly volunteering for the covert mission, Jack felt like he could breathe again.

He'd gotten his men home every time. This wasn't going to be any different. The group that was going through the gate just simply got a little bigger.

A small, silver button-like object was pressed into his palm. He raised his eyebrows at the coin-like device, casually flipped it twice, then looked enquiringly at the person who gave it to him.

Kynal.

But her face was serious, revealing nothing of what had transpired between them.

"The communication device is attuned to your voices. The pulses it radiates ensure that the device calibrates itself to the electrical activity in your brain. It also senses the pressure variations that the ear receives," she said for his benefit. "You only need speak and we will all hear."

Jack gave his a slight prod, briefly examined its flat, smooth surface, then stuck it to his inner shirt and gave it a pat for good measure.

A small, holographic map of the tunnel network appeared, framed against the dark wall like snakelike trails of red and yellow printed on a board game.

"Sorel and Hedin will accompany the Colonel to rescue his teammates using this route through the west curve into the great forest," Kynal said, her finger tracing a slight 'V' shape around the translucent hologram of the facility, the trail lighting up blue at her touch.

"The prisoners are kept in a separate building that is on the other side of the portal, on the opposite side of the town that you saw," Sorel added. "The tunnels will lead only part way there. We will be in plain sight for some distance."

"Timing is key," Kynal went on. "The cells are less tightly guarded than the experimental facility, which would be to your advantage. Ferdan and I will attempt to penetrate the Aschen facility by the northern entrance and introduce an influx of negative Cuperlon into the vent. The vent's instability will reach its maximum by the thirty-minute mark, which would then destroy the Aschen facility." She gestured to the portions of the tunnels marked in red. "These parts are going to be completely destroyed in the blast. The only route that remains for Ferdan and I to the portal would be by the south of the Aschen town. Sorel, Hedin, Jack and his team will be coming from the north by the forest."

"It is indeed a delicate situation," Ferdan said, "The Aschen will be warned about the vent's instability after a certain amount of Cuperlon has been injected into it. Kynal and I will do our best to alter the sensors that are built into their delivery systems so that the early warning does not occur. We do not want to risk the chance of the Aschen guards and doctors coming early, discovering our subterfuge and halting the whole process of overloading."

A distant beep came from an unknown source in the room, effectively ending the briefing.

"It's time," Hedin said solemnly, gesturing to wall chronometer.

"Before we go," Kynal interrupted hastily, glancing at the chronometer in mild annoyance. "You will be given a combination of several weapons that we favour. The stun-weapon, the armoured-vest and a sensory bomb that disorients the enemy."

"Are we all clear on this?" Hedin asked.

An eager chorus of affirmatives followed his question.

"Then we are ready," Ferdan sombrely announced. "May we all live to see many more days."

* * *

They took to the tunnels shortly, armed merely with stun weapons modified with a shoot-to-kill switch and protected by a thin layer of a polymer-fabric that Hedin swore was more than sufficient against the Aschen lasers beams.

"We're making good progress," Hedin noted satisfactorily. "The paths will fork in about a hundred metres."

Jack followed quietly, unconsciously adjusting his grip on the stun weapon, learning the feel of its weight in his hand. Then, like a muffled ring that started in his head and moved to his ear, Kynal's hushed voice came though on a soft cackle of static.

"Approaching the northern entrance."

"Roger that," he replied unthinkingly, seeing the puzzled looks flash across Sorel's and Hedin's faces.

He stopped short for a minute, their bewilderment registering on him. "Right," Jack tried again with a shrug. "That means, 'your message is understood and received'. Just an expression we have."

Without waiting for their response, he rounded the corner in a near-sprint and melded into the shadows, taking the right fork of the path. Not long more, he urged himself, despite the lingering tiredness that hadn't seemed to fully gone away since the days he'd been prodded and poked to no end.

The path was straight, then curved a hard right and went on for what seemed like miles.

"Just up ahead."

"I see it."

The flight of steps that led upwards was rough and patchy in places, the unstable earth that once supported it having already crumbled in the upper rungs.

Jack went first, his steps quick and sure, reaching the top step just as Ferdan and Kynal reported their steady progress towards the north entrance. A tentative push of the top caused it to tilt upwards on its lever, sending a shower of dust into his face despite his best efforts to turn away and hold his breath. When the dust finally settled, he hefted himself up, got his footing and immediately reached down to pull the rest up.

The tunnel led to a dead end, the pungent stench of chemical and human waste wafting over in a noxious cloud of wispy grey smoke tendrils.

The faint sounds of voices trickled through several floors of grilled ceilings as dim light filtered through.

Hedin tossed a cloth covering to all of them, then gestured down the corridor. "We are now directly below the cells. We have to go this way, and then up three levels. Your friends are there."

"The waste generators must be near," Sorel noted grimly, pulling a cloth cover over his mouth and nose.

"You don't say," Jack muttered, hurriedly doing the same, then picked up his pace, knowing not to underestimate the sheer distances that the expansive tunnel network actually covered.

Ferdan's voice cut through their stealthy movements. "Reaching the Aschen core delivery systems. Preparation of Cuperlon has begun."

They soldiered on, taking the flight of stairs at the other end of the long corridor, stopping short when approaching footsteps beckoned.

The quiet whine of a stun weapon discharge echoed down the stairwell. An Aschen guard fell a second later, his body noiselessly caught by Sorel and promptly tossed aside.

"There will be more of-."

Guards poured into the corridor, armed with rapid-pulse laser weapons.

"Shit," Jack cursed, hitting the ground hard as he ducked and rolled over.

The bad guys always came at the most crucial bits, he thought scathingly as he raised his own weapon and fired, gaining momentum as the energy beams brought them down.

Two down. Seven more.

His blood sang in his veins at the adrenaline rush. From the corner of his eye, Sorel and Hedin were doing the same, their sharpness and swiftness proving their advantage over the smaller, less-prepared Aschen guards. Dimly, he thought he heard Kynal's panicked whispers over the communication link.

The crossfire was over in thirty seconds, not that it surprised him.

The resistance had indeed trained well for this.

Jack turned instinctively to look at his temporary team, feeling the strange sense of freedom and constraint in not having to give any orders this time.

"They probably have a transmitter that helps keep a personnel count," Hedin said, turning to wait for Sorel who was already giving Ferdan and Kynal their situation report. "We must move on."

Jack nodded in acknowledgement. The way to the cells was still paved with obstacles.

Ferdan's voice came through as they ran up to the first level. "Completing injection of negative Cuperlon particles." Two seconds later, he spoke again, "Uploading a computational bypass that prevents early detection."

Damn, they've done it. And he was still two floors away from hauling his team out.

The moment of distraction proved costly. An Aschen laser beam sliced through the air and burnt through Hedin's right leg, his agonised cry drifting far up enough to alert the guards on the other floors.

In an instant, Jack and Sorel had pulled him over to a corner. "You'll stay partially hidden here."

Jack didn't think twice. He stood up, flung a smoke bomb through the air and ducked back in the corner as it detonated with a flash of light. Black, heavy smoke filled the level in the next second, making their eyes water instantly.

"Go…now," Hedin panted through gritted teeth, slowly trying to manoeuvre himself into a sitting position against the wall.

"Jack, There's no time. I must stay with him. You have to go," Sorel urged, crouching beside him fallen comrade and looking over his injuries.

"No one gets left behind," Jack retorted in reply.

Hedin was already shaking his head, the pain obvious on his face. "There is no way out for us."

What was it with these people and their fatalistic way of looking at things? A quick glance behind and ahead told Jack that the way was clear; it was a window of opportunity that he intuitively knew that he wasn't ever going to get again.

But they were right. He had to go.

"I'll be back. Don't do anything funny." Jack warned and took off, using the force of his momentum to take him up the stairwell, crouching only when he reached the last flight of steps that led up the third level.

Slowly, he flattened himself as best as he could against the steps, inching upward to take a cautious look around.

Stationary globes of laser pulse weapons were aimed directly at the prisoners' cells, controlled by a circuit board that was a few paces away from the last cell door nearest to him. Two Aschen guards stood at the end of the row of cells, their electronic access devices forming obvious creases in the side pockets of their tunics.

Kynal's voice came through quietly, briefly interrupting Jack's perusal of his surroundings. "Twenty-five minutes to vent rupture. Ferdan and I will only leave the facility at the ten-minute mark."

The clock was ticking down. Jack ran a suitable course of action through his mind, repeating it for good measure.

"Jack, you must hurry," Sorel said over the link. "Hedin is not doing well."

"No pressure, O'Neill," he muttered to himself, then whipped around to aim his stun weapon at the control panel.

Jack fired thrice, taking advantage of the burst of smoke and the shattered electrical circuits to launch himself from the bottom step and onto the floor of the third level cells.

The heavy rattle of bodies pressed against metal reached his ears.

"O'Neill!"

"Sir!"

A grin formed on his face upon hearing their voices.

Then he ran through the smoke, towards source of the voices as he dodged the Aschen weapons fire. He rolled and righted himself, discharging several blasts of his own weapon.

The guards crumpled silently to the floor. Too easy, a suspicious voice in his mind said.

How many more were there?

Jack decided that he didn't want to find out. He grabbed the electronic access devices from the guards' singed tunics and stole a glance at his watch. Twenty minutes to vent rupture, and ticking rapidly down. Then he straightened back up, holding the devices against the doors and heard the satisfying click of the release mechanism resonate through the hallway.

"C'mon, boys."

His team scrambled through the threshold, smelling like crap from a mile away. "Fragrant," Jack couldn't help but mutter, knowing he probably didn't look or smell any better.

A heavy clap fell across his back.

"O'Neill." He turned to see Teal'c nod of wordless gratitude.

Gesturing curtly for them to hurry their asses up, he spoke into his communication link. "I've got them. But I'll go back for Sorel and Hedin."

"Sir, who are y-"

"Later," Jack interrupted, tossing the spare resistance weapons that he'd strapped to his leg to the rest of them and made an impatient gesture for them to follow him down the flight of stairs. "Cover me."

Thankfully, Hedin was still conscious when they found him.

"Sorel, Hedin, meet the folks." The introduction was casual and brief. "Folks, they're part of the Aschen resistance. But explanations can wait. Time to leave Kansas."

A large rumble shook the foundations of the building, breaking the exchange of pleasantries. They hadn't moved several paces when another tremor, stronger than the previous one, followed in the next moment.

"Jack, fifteen minutes to vent rupture," Ferdan spoke tersely into the link. "If you have your team, you need to go now. The critical, irreversible stage has been reached. Kynal and I are leaving the facility."

The next seism made them lose their footing, the shock wave coming from deep within the planet's epicentre, spreading outwards like a blast wave of a detonating nuclear bomb. Then the ground rolled and cracked, spraying disintegrating concrete in all directions.

The sound of the planet tearing open was immense, an inhuman groan of pain that rattled Jack more than he thought it would.

He strained to right himself. Around him, the team was struggling to do the same, like sailors on a stricken boat in rough seas.

"C'mon! Go! Go!"

"The route to the forest would have been rendered unstable because of the vent's rapid expansion!"

The guy obviously never got a copy of his rulebook. "Don't quote me the odds now, Hedin!" Jack snapped with a clenched jaw. "I'm not busting you guys out only to get my ass blown up!"

Sorel was shouting above the din. "We barely have enough time to reach the portal, Jack! Hedin can't walk!"

In response, Teal'c lifted the injured man over his shoulders easily. "I believe I can run with him."

Jack's rejoinder was curt and impatient. "Great. Let's go!"

Retracing their routes underground part of the way wasn't as easy as it had been earlier when the overloaded vent deep under the planet was starting to compromise soil stability.

The temperatures were rising uncomfortably.

"Left fork, Colonel," Sorel yelled as parts of the tunnels started to crumble, venting steam. "It will lead you out into the forest to the back of the portal."

"Eleven minutes, Jack."

Jack scowled ferociously and concentrated instead on the narrowing pathway that had been carved out beneath the frozen forest ground. He was breathing harshly in the intensifying heat, the thudding of his accelerating heartbeat loud in his own ears.

"Over here!"

The small door creaked open with their combined effort, the sudden harsh blast of cold wind in their faces both a relief and an unpleasant reminder of the conditions in which they needed to operate for the next few minutes. Between the howling winds and the towering trees that stretched for miles, it was damn near impossible to make any sort of educated guess where they were supposed to be headed.

But Sorel was already holding up a positioning device, its faint beeps signalling the exact direction they were to take.

The trudge through the foot-high snow deposits was ponderous and excruciating, the increasingly frequent rumbles from deep within fissuring the frozen ground on which they stood.

"Six minutes!" Kynal's earlier composure seemed to have been gone from her voice. Even through the noise, the bleakness of her own situation was plainly audible. "I've lost Ferdan."

"What?" The agonised whisper from Hedin carried through to his ears.

Not allowing her grief to take over, Jack spoke immediately into the communication link. "Kynal, you've got to listen. We're nearly there. You need to come to the gate now!"

"I can't, Jack, Ferdan is…" Her last word was lost on a ragged sob and absorbed by the loud rumble from the planet's core.

The sharp, stinging pain he felt for her was quickly replaced by cool determination. The time for tears would come later.

"Yes, you can," Jack spoke deliberately and calmly into his link, his voice hard and harsh above the elements. "Kynal, you are going to join us now and that's a damn order. I'm _ordering_ you to do it." He pulled the commander-card on her when he'd no right to, all in the blind hope that she'd respond to the resistance's ranking protocol.

Whatever it took.

In that millisecond of silence that followed, he was truly afraid that she'd given it all up.

"Four minutes to rupture. It will take me about three minutes to get to you." Kynal's voice, shaky but resolute, came over the link.

Jack heaved a silent sigh of relief, but didn't break his stride as he ran and stumbled along with his team towards the gate. "Good. See you there."

"I see it, Sir!" Turner yelled.

His heart leapt at the sight. In the distance, slightly dusted with a layer of ice and snow, a grey ring stood stubbornly upright in the gale force winds, an unmistakable symbol of their freedom.

Closing the last few metres to the platform, Jack swiped impatiently at his watch.

One minute.

Kynal was nowhere in sight.

Fuck.

Fifty seconds.

They were flat out of time.

"Turner, dial P5K-112," he barked over the sonic boom of the collapsing town square. "We're gonna make a few hops before dialling the Alpha Site and then back to Earth!"

"Yes, Sir!"

Glancing up to the spinning Stargate, he saw chevron six locking, then cast anxious eyes over the disintegrating landscape.

Twenty seconds.

_Come on, Kynal!_ _Where the fuck are you? _

Just as he was about to turn away, a running figure came into sight, stumbling as the ground rattled and shook. She righted herself as quickly as she could, dodging the cracks that streaked across the icy ground.

Chevron seven lit and engaged.

The wormhole flared to life with a roar, its familiar blue puddle beckoning invitingly.

"Kynal!" Jack yelled in relief as he motioned the others through. He risked a few steps back to grab her arm, pushing her into the blue puddle, readying to step through himself when a prolonged tectonic shift threw him to the ground.

The ground trembled for what seemed like the last time, the stress of the vent diagonally tearing the Aschen town apart from east to west. A roiling sea of lava spilled over parts of the fissure, colouring the ground orange and black, releasing a loud hiss of steam as superheated rock met ice.

Sprawled ungainly at an uncomfortable angle and choking in the haze, Jack scrambled to haul himself upright and up onto the platform, keeping his watering eyes only on the gleaming, blue ripples of the wormhole.

Just a bit more…

_O'Neill, focus! _

His tiring legs finally closed the distance and he flung himself in after her, barely missing the fracture in the ground that, in the next second, widened to swallow everything in its gaping, fiery jaws.


	12. Intersections

**Chapter 12 - Intersections**

**SGC  
Colorado Springs  
May 9, 2001**

Through the glass window, Sam could see that Hammond was still on the phone. Daniel stood beside her carrying a large number of books and files along with the tubes of archival material they'd brought back from Volia, already blinking his impatience.

The door to Hammond's office swung open and a second later, a bald head appeared at its threshold.

"Welcome back, people. I certainty wished I could have had this briefing sooner after you returned. Come in."

"Thank you, Sir."

They took their seats opposite his desk as Hammond sank back heavily into his seat. He waited until they had all their findings splayed out on the limited space before he spoke.

"How did it go?"

"The long and short of it is, around two hundred years ago, the Volians were a thriving urban civilisation approximating turn of the century North America in terms of technology. And that, in sociological or anthropological terms, is not a long time ago."

"What happened?" Hammond asked, now grimly intrigued and unsurprised by a similar circumstance that seemed to be a common trend among the Aschen allies.

"Actually, we ran into it by sheer luck, Sir. A farmer named Keel saw us and brought us back to his house. He later mentioned that there was an iron structure in his field that was hindering farming work. We checked it out, only to realise that it ran deep underground," Sam continued, glancing at Daniel who looked impatient to continue.

She relented and gestured to him with a small tilt of her head.

The eager archaeologist needed no second invitation. "It turns out that Keel's farm is built above the buried ruins of the Volian Union's capital city that had been in fact, a thriving metropolis," he said, pulling on some gloves to ready the parchment. Then he unrolled the tattered and yellowed front page and all but shoved it at them. "We discovered old newspapers that reported the socio-political situation on Volia. Now what we know is that there was a flu pandemic similar to the one on Earth in 1918 that killed over twenty million people. And that is when the Aschen came."

Not for the first time, Hammond wondered at the connection. The same old story. Familiar and unsettling.

With narrowed eyes, he asked quietly, "Do you understand the implications of what you're saying, Dr. Jackson?"

"Sir, a picture tells a thousand words. Look at this," Daniel said, pointing at the monochromatic photo that stood just below the headline. The people are rioting."

Hammond felt the a familiar prickle of alarm start deep in his stomach, a sensation that was exclusively reserved for occasions when SG-1 got into trouble off-world.

"And you're sure that they are rioting against the Aschen?" he asked finally.

Sam hesitated, then continued, "I think, Sir, that the Aschen had never meant to be our friends at all, from the beginning."

"General," Daniel supplied, tracing the typeface with a gloved finger, "If you look carefully at the headline, it says in big, black letters 'Aschen vaccine causes – something'. This word, loosely translates as medicine, vaccine, drug, followed by 'from the newcomers' followed by 'causes', followed by – some word I can't translate. I don't know what it is yet, but I don't think it's a good thing. Now, this was the latest issue of the paper we could find, which most likely indicates the paper was quickly shut down after the riots...or that something worse had happened."

"According to Keel's story that he heard from his adoptive Aschen parents, the Aschen befriended the Volians, offered them a vaccine for their epidemic, and saved their world. Now, by all accounts, the Aschen were heroes to the Volians, and their friendship lasted for years. But, then, something happened," Sam put in.

"What happened?" Hammond asked, grimacing. His eyes were gritty, he hadn't slept properly in his quarters and there hadn't even been time for a cup of coffee before the phone had started ringing with an incident down in the labs.

But there were just some things that couldn't wait.

Daniel pursed his lips in thought, then replied with some hesitation. "I think that the Aschen actually wiped them out. But before I actually confirm this hypothesis, I'd like to find a translation for that missing word to be sure."

"Dr. Jackson, this is-" Hammond's next words were drowned out by the wail of the klaxons. "We'll reconvene after this."

* * *

"Chief?"

"It's SG-1's IDC, Sir."

"Open the iris!"

Sam's hurried steps down to the control room outmatched Hammond's after she caught sight of the computer screen's confirmation of the GDO code.

It sent her heart to her throat.

_He_ was back.

Hammond was already out of the control room and halfway to the gate room, yet Sam hesitated to follow, knowing this wasn't just a routine mission from which he returned without the rest of SG-1. O'Neill had left without saying a word, and despite's Hammond's insistence that the Colonel was merely prioritising Earth's security in this particular run off-world, she was convinced – even more so now – that the deteriorating team dynamics had been in part responsible for his impetus in doing so.

How would he react to both her and Daniel when he saw them with the team that he'd taken? Would he still want SG-1 together especially since the strong bonds of trust had been so sorely tested to breaking point?

Giving herself a mental shake of the head, Sam stopped that thought before it became a tangible, living fear.

Then the moment of unease passed; the thought that he'd be through the gate anytime now unfroze her limbs. She raced down the stairs behind Daniel into a crowded gate room with the SFs on alert, coming to a stop in front of the wall just as Ferretti and Turner raced in, their momentum carrying them down the ramp. Teal'c came through a second later, bearing an unfamiliar man on his shoulders.

"Hold your fire!" Turner was shouting at the SFs, gesturing to the active wormhole.

Hammond's commanding voice reinforced the order. "Stand down!"

But no sooner had she laid her eyes on them did two other strangers step through the wormhole, stumbling down the ramp as the SG team did.

Where was-?

The last man flew through the wormhole, curling immediately into a roll to break his fall and came to a stop where the ramp started, the ominous sound of a thundering rumble behind him absorbed by the metallic ring of the closing iris.

"Jack!"

_The Colonel. _

Her breath caught at the sight of him.

His team rushed to give him a hand, but he brushed off their efforts and righted himself without much difficulty.

"Medical team to the gate room!"

God, he still looked good, Sam thought, her eyes devouring his appearance. Thinner, more unkempt, the hollows and dimples in his cheeks starker than before he left.

But if he'd seen her, he hadn't given any indication, walking up to Hammond through the crowd with a jaunty salute.

"General, good to see you, Sir."

"I'd say the same, Colonel but you look worse for wear."

Hammond's clipped greeting made him grin briefly. "Can't deny that, Sir. We intended to gate back to the SGC from the Alpha site after a few planet hops. But it looks like the Alpha site's gate's offline for now, so we jumped directly here from our last hop on '211. Unfortunately," he grimaced, "let's just say we attracted some…unwanted attention."

Hammond's worried expression didn't change. It was obvious that the team had been covering their tracks. But from what? Or rather, from _whom_? "That planet's friendly, Colonel."

"Yeah, I thought so too. An annual village hunt got in the way," Ferretti chipped in.

"More trouble was just what we needed to make life interesting, General."

Hammond didn't miss the Colonel's brief glower and sarcastic repartee. But an underlying tension belied O'Neill's acerbic words; years of working with this man immediately told him that it had more to do with the team's mission than their close shave from some village hunt.

That, however, would come later. Meanwhile, he opted to keep things simple.

"Why don't you introduce us to your new friends?"

The sternness melted from O'Neill's face into a slight smile.

"Sir, meet Sorel, Hedin and Kynal," he said, then continued in a low tone so that his next words only reached Hammond's ears. "They helped save all of us. And I think the rest should be discussed in the post-mission briefing."

"Very well, Colonel," Hammond said, deciding not to press the issue. "Welcome to Earth, all of you."

"Thank you, General. We had a fourth. Our leader," the blond woman spoke for the first time, her unfamiliar, lilting accent drawing the attention of the gate room and earning curious stares from Sam and Daniel. "Unfortunately, he is now lost to us."

Sam strained to hear her quiet words, her growing interest eclipsing her initial sense of unease and baffled hurt.

But if Hammond was perturbed by Kynal's revelation, he didn't show it, merely stretching out his hand to the newcomers. "Good to meet you. I'm looking forward to the debriefing already."

Hurried footfalls cut through the quiet murmurs in the gate room.

Janet was gently pushing her way through to get to O'Neill and the rest of his team, her nurses already relieving Teal'c of his burden and helping the injured man onto the gurney.

The Colonel caught sight of the small doctor approaching them and grimaced, knowing better than to raise a protest. "Infirmary, now?"

"All of you," Janet ordered, and turned to the visitors with a softer, friendlier smile. "I'm afraid I will need to examine you as well."

The refusal was immediate.

"No."

"Jack, please…"

Sam stiffened at the sound of her CO's _name_ falling from an unfamiliar woman's lips, an unexpected flash of resentment coursing through her as she saw a look of protective understanding dawn on O'Neill's face at the woman's panicked exclamation.

Unprepared for the sudden looks of distrust that crossed the other two strangers' faces and their clear reluctance to follow, Janet was opening her mouth to answer when the Colonel interrupted, smoothly putting himself between them.

"Kynal, Sorel, it's fine. It's standard operating procedure. Everyone who comes through the gate must be medically checked out," he reassured them in a low voice, tilting his head towards Janet slightly. "The doc's a power monger in her infirmary, but I promise she's okay. It's nothing like the facility. C'mon, I'll show you the way."

In response, they nodded reluctantly, stepping ahead to follow him. The rest of the team trooped obediently behind Janet, leaving Daniel and Sam in the gate room staring at their retreating backs.

The baffled archaeologist was the first to speak. "Well, that was…interesting."

Sam worked moisture into a dry mouth before answering. "Yeah."

"Major, Dr. Jackson," Hammond spoke before leaving the gate room for his office, "I'm sure Colonel O'Neill and his team have quite a story to tell. Our discussion will have to wait for another time. Briefing in an hour."

* * *

The infirmary was thankfully empty and surreal in its familiarity. Between getting a penlight in his eyes and several vials of blood drawn from him, Jack was all but ready to bust himself out of the place.

But tiredness held him down as much as sheer willpower did. Jack stayed unnaturally still as the doc's nurses finished their tests, gritting his teeth through the wave of memories of his incarceration in the facility to the events of the past few hours, knowing this likely meant the termination of the mission and that makeshift team of his.

Not that he really regretted it, if he were honest.

But what he'd regretted was seeing Carter again all too soon, unprepared for the familiar rush of exhilaration that had been swiftly followed by the painful reminder of her attempt to get a life apart from the SGC, that he hadn't played a significant part in her grand plan as much he'd hoped.

The crowd in the gate room had made it easier for him to ignore her presence and Janet's order for them to report to the infirmary had given him the rare opportunity of a quiet moment behind the curtains of his bed, to regroup, to steel himself before he met the other half of SG-1 again.

But sooner or later, he was still going to have to deal with…whatever this was. Privately. Again. Preferably with a mind-numbing drink as soon as the doc released him.

For now, Jack was thankful for the flimsy curtain shield.

A quiet voice came through. "Colonel?"

"Doc?" He asked tentatively, "Can I go now?"

The curtain was drawn to admit the petite brunette, who then closed it behind them when she stood in the space between his bed and the fabric barrier.

She wasted no time. "I was having a conversation with Kynal and Sorel and before I make my official report to General Hammond, I'd like a word, Sir."

Jack interrupted what he thought was going to be a potential medical interrogation. "How's my team? Teal'c, Turner, Ferretti, I mean," he clarified needlessly.

Belatedly, Janet realised that he was talking about the team that had followed him through on that covert series of missions and not about SG-1. "They are doing fine. Exhausted as you are, sleep-deprived, malnourished, but fine."

"Good. And, uh, Daniel? Carter?"

His tone was casual, peppered with an amount of indifference calculated to make her think it was merely a question that demonstrated a CO's natural concern for his teammates. But Janet suspected that there was more to it than he let on, having caught the slight flicker of emotion in his eyes before it disappeared into the dark, impermeable depths of what little she knew of Jack O'Neill. His face was drawn and fatigued, doubtlessly caused by the ordeal he'd been through. But a part of her had always wondered if the deteriorating dynamics of SG-1 had driven O'Neill to do something that had cost him too much.

Janet had known of Sam's half-hearted attempts to date Faxon and even more about the deep feelings that her friend harboured for the extraordinary man who sat before her. But what could she say when it looked as though Sam hadn't quite understood her own self in the past few weeks?

In the end, she kept it simple, knowing he'd see through anything else. "They're fine, Colonel. We were all happy to see you return."

He looked up to see a slight, reassuring smile on her face, wondering if the doc was being particularly gentle with him. Her usual impatience with his difficult antics was lacking, an obvious concern having replaced the typically neutral front that she wore with her patients.

Jack studied her for a second, then changed the subject entirely. To another one he wasn't too sure he'd ever be ready to talk about.

"You probably already know I've been experimented on by those bastards, right?"

Her demeanour was strangely mild but her nod of acknowledgement was firm, the quiet compassion he felt from her nearly breaking him.

"I will need to do run some tests on your DNA, Sir. Kynal said that only time will tell whether you are permanently affected by the drugs. The cocktail that you've been given has proven its effectiveness with several people, but I need to make sure," she said, tapping a pen against her clipboard absently. "As of now however, I don't see any problems with you."

Her prognosis made him hopeful. "So I'm okay, then?"

"For now," she conceded, scribbling some notes down, then moved to check his readings again. "You're doing good so far, Sir. General Hammond wants to meet all of you as soon as I'm done, so I'd better not keep you."

In ordinary circumstances, that would have been sufficient reason for him to leap up from the bed and hightail it out of there, yet he remained in his bed, unmoving, hesitating.

A look of incredulous surprise crossed the doctor's face. "Colonel, you're free to go."

"Yeah," he finally said, but only moved to get dressed after hearing her retreating footsteps. He stayed still for a while longer, listening idly to the click of her low-heeled shoes on the concrete floor and the murmurs of conversation before moving to shrug on his BDU jacket. The familiar feel of the heavy cotton fabric enclosed him like the hug of an old friend, a weighty reminder of successful missions carried out, of unending duty - a symbol of his life the moment he'd gotten involved with the SGC.

In the end, it was a poor exchange for another kind of freedom.

A soft voice calling his name made him look up mid-way.

"Yeah, Kynal." Jack finished doing up the last button on his jacket and parted the curtain to see her waiting for him, her eyes reflecting her unease.

He got up and headed out as she fell into step beside him.

"I need to apologise for telling Dr. Frasier about what you had been through in the experimental facility," Kynal started, looking unsure of herself. "I realised only later that it was not my place to answer those questions she asked."

"You did what you had to do," he said, turning left into the corridor as she walked by his side, steering her unconsciously in the direction of the commissary. "Don't think too much about it."

She turned apologetic blue eyes to him and he fought the urge not to think of another woman who stood so near – so close – and yet, so far. "Still, I'm sorry."

"It had to come out eventually, Kynal. Doesn't matter where or from whom the news came."

Her reply was cautiously accepting. "Alright."

Without thinking, he placed a consoling hand over her shoulder, only to see Carter step out of the elevator at the other end of the corridor and the troubled frown that marred her face when she caught sight of the both of them.

Jack froze, removing his hand immediately, meeting the dismayed gaze of the very person who, despite it all, was never far from his thoughts.

Carter.

Who's also with Faxon now, he reminded himself harshly, ignoring the pain in his chest that suddenly felt too pressing, too real.

Carter. Sam.

The woman who wore red for a man at a casual pizza place.

The only woman he wanted but couldn't have. And for whom the woman by his side would be too inadequate a replacement despite her interest.

Carter approached them briskly, her professional demeanour firmly in place when she greeted them. "Kynal. Colonel."

The pleasantries they exchanged did nothing but heighten the awkward tension that soon had him fidgeting uncomfortably and Carter quickly excusing herself like a bird in full flight.

At that moment, Jack hated himself for his weakness when it came to her, hated _her_ for making him feel like an unpractised, inadequate schoolboy and hated the circumstances that dictated why they did what they did.

The emotion drained away as quickly as it came, leaving him bonelessly weary.

Jack quickly flicked his eyes away from Carter's retreating form and turned his attention back to the woman who stood beside him, a forced lightness returning to his voice. "So, do you like cake?"

* * *

**SGC  
Colorado Springs  
May 10, 2001**

Only the fourth chirp of the computer signalling the end of a simulation run detailing Naquadah's reaction times with several elements roused her out of her thoughts. Sam absently turned to the beeping machine, punched in another command and repeated the simulation, glad for once that the time-consuming testing phases of the project required little of her attention.

The briefing with Hammond and the Resistance leaders a day earlier had been long and tiring, but it seemed that her excitement upon seeing the Colonel again had turned into an aching awareness of the woman who seemed to attained a measure of familiarity with him that she, as his second IC, never had the privilege nor the hope of achieving. Yet learning about the Colonel's treatment in the facility on the ice plant was horrifying and a large part of her was immensely grateful to Kynal for initiating his rescue. She'd seen Daniel's shock, obvious to all, knowing that she felt the same.

In fact, the accounts of the Resistance leaders had been nothing less than astonishing, keeping all at the briefing table enthralled in a complex web of intrigue and struggles of Madrelan Quon'yl for as long as they remembered. In the truest sense of the word, they were the survivors who prevailed, whose collective strength had no parallel.

And the SGC now owed them the lives of their best officers.

It was clear, however, that they needed to tread carefully; the Dalbar'ash would be willing to provide some weapons but were, above all, eager for the resettlement process. Hammond had backed up Jack's hasty promise made on the ice planet, assigning SG-12 to oversee this process as soon as Hedin was physically mobile. In the meantime, he'd placed SG-1 on downtime for another week after which they were to return for a meeting about the Aschen.

But the General had also made clear that SG-1 was going to be put together again now that she and Daniel knew about O'Neill's covert operations off-world and that he was expecting all of them to sort out their team issues on their own in that week of downtime while he tried to reach the President.

Sam's weary exhale was lost in the low, pulsing drone of the machines. Something, she knew, had to be done. But how could they even start to sort out this mess that was now SG-1? If differentiating opinions had begun this rift, a volatile combination of stubbornness, pride and desperation had only deepened it, widening the chasm until it was near unbridgeable.

More than anything, she missed O'Neill. Possibly as much as, or even more than she missed being a part of SG-1.

The disastrous attempt at finding some sort of common ground with Joe Faxon was enough confirmation that the Colonel was, by a long shot, going to be the man she could never let go of for the foreseeable future. It was exhausting being the good soldier all the time, denying everything she felt for her commanding officer because duty called, a decision that was made the day Anise had strapped her to the chair in front of the Za'tarc detector. And since then she'd been caught in immovable place within a crossroad of duty and desire, wavering between wanting more and fearing the potential ramifications of taking a step closer to what she wanted.

But she'd been entirely unprepared for the strain under which this stance was putting her.

It had taken the catalytic force in the form of Joe and the revelation that the Colonel had nearly died off-world for her to fully realise that their days in the field had an expiry date. The initial optimism of a short-lived Goa'uld war was long fading into a bone-weary tiredness when it seemed as though Earth was going to mired in a long-term struggle with an endless number of System Lords. Making the acquaintance of the Aschen had given her hope that this dreaded scenario wouldn't come to pass.

But now, it looked as though the Colonel was right about this particular race.

So it also meant that SG-1 was going to be needed again. To operate as they always did: a leader with his subordinates, performing like a clockwork team.

At the same time, she wasn't sure anymore of her ability to accept the fact that she might never live to see the day where Jack O'Neill existed as someone other than her commanding officer. For her, it was no longer enough. Not when the presence of another woman who vied for his attentions was leaving her feeling more bereft than she should ever feel about one man. In the five years of working so closely with him, she had never felt so discomfited, so panicked about losing him when it'd ironically been her who'd first – and perhaps unfairly – pulled away.

The impromptu moment of soul-searching had brought up a deluge of uncomfortable questions. Could she sit still and keep her peace should he try to find happiness with another woman? To do as she'd tried to do but failed spectacularly in the attempt? But to put these unanswerable questions away as she'd done numerous times was nothing short of familiar repression. Now, all it seemed to be was the coward's way out, an easy back door that would lead down a slippery slope until dishonesty characterised her life and her emotions.

The last four years notwithstanding, Sam had never thought of herself as someone prone to emotional cowardice. It would have been easy to blame the scarring experiences of having lost her mother in teenagehood, the exacting upbringing of a General father and the shenanigans of a controlling ex-fiancé for the paralysing indecision that was assailing her now.

But she was weary as well, of the need to find more excuses for what she was doing, of doing things she didn't exactly want to do.

And in the stark quiet and darkness of the lab, the answer seemed so obvious.

She had to know where she really stood, knew that she owed it to herself to confront him. Even if it meant learning the hard way that he did have a new woman in his life, which would then give her all the answers that she needed.

Sam ran a hassled hand through her hair, staring sightlessly at the computer screen.

It wasn't being altogether too fair to him, a niggling voice at the back of her mind repeated, seeing as she'd made that choice…for the both of them that day. But she knew she couldn't afford the wait to see if she'd permanently slammed shut the door between them. Whether or not she had any future at all with Jack O'Neill…Sam suspected that it all lay in her ability to bring this particular confrontation to his doorstep.

_Jack_. She whispered his name aloud, a reverent prayer for the momentous task ahead of her.

This can't – _shouldn't_ – be happening, the rational part of her mind furiously argued. But her disobedient fingers were already nimbly moving over the machines to shut them down.

She grabbed her jacket and left the mountain, unheeding of the late hour. Propelled by pure adrenaline and momentum, she was entirely aware of how much she needed to do this before her courage quailed and deserted her.

The Colonel had taken off from the SGC shortly after the briefing, presumably for his home, leaving the three members of the Resistance in their quarters and the rest of SG-1 to do whatever they wanted. Sam didn't know if he was heading north to the cabin, or whether he had simply chosen to hole himself up in his house.

The roads were quiet at this time of the night and her speedy vintage car had eaten the miles faster than she'd expected. She pulled into his neighbourhood, slowing down as she reached the end of the suburban area that led into an untended area of grassland.

The wooded lot where his house stood at the end of the leafy street looked…empty and lifeless.

Why…why wasn't he home? Had he gone to the cabin…? More importantly, had she missed her chance to speak to him?

Sam took a deep, shaking breath, swiping at the moisture that she hadn't known was gathering on her cheeks. Her vision now unhindered, she could see the back part of his truck, parked neatly at the side of his house, camouflaged by the encompassing darkness.

Relief swept through her, the urgency to see him returning full-force.

Parking the car round back, Sam crossed the distance to his house quickly and came to a halt just before the front door, trying to look through the unlit interior. The enormity of the task ahead had never weighed more heavily on her. She was going to drag everything out into the open, verbalising all the things that had been left unsaid and risking all that they were doing.

It would have been easier to bolt and forget all that she'd set out to do.

Do what you need to do, she thought, raising her hand to ring the doorbell.

A voice pierced the darkness a few seconds later. "Up here!"

The Colonel was on the roof. The only other place where he sought refuge when he couldn't be in Minnesota.

"Sir?" She called out tentatively, damning silence following the announcement of her arrival.

He'd heard her, she was certain. Sam swallowed hard, her accelerating heartbeat loud in her chest and in her ears.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, O'Neill answered in a more subdued tone.

"Come on up, Carter."

* * *

_A/N: We're back to the Sam and Jack show. Think some of you have been waiting for this. We're not quite through with the story yet though!_


	13. Purpose

_A/N: This chapter's rated 'M' for good reason and this also changes the whole rating of the story. For those who have been asking me about this chapter, I hope this satisfies. Thanks for reading._

* * *

**Chapter 13 - Purpose**

**Jack O'Neill's residence  
Colorado Springs  
May 11, 2001**

"To what do I owe the pleasure at this time of night, Carter?"

Sam flinched at the irritation that laced his voice, having just stepped over the ladder to hear what he'd asked, his cavalier indifference an unwanted reminder of how much things seemed to have changed irrevocably between them.

Finding her mouth suddenly dry, she cleared her throat before attempting to answer. The image of O'Neill lying in a reclining fold-up chair sharpened as her eyes regained their focus slowly in the dim remnants of lights that shone from the distant, neighbouring houses. He was facing away from the ladder with the telescope, an empty beer bottle and a throw rug next to him, turned away from the world.

Away from her.

"I wanted to see you, Sir."

"Couldn't it have waited?"

She forged ahead. "Actually, I don't think it can."

"Why?" Jack's voice was still husky with the remnants of sleep, the monosyllabic demand soft but still commanding in the quiet night. He'd never known her to come to him willingly, so why was she starting now? "Why the sudden concern, Carter?"

She should have known that this would be difficult. O'Neill was a man who didn't forgive or forget easily; his belligerence, as always, was an effective deterrent. But Sam couldn't stop the hint of reproach that entered her reply, the boldness of her statement surprising even herself.

"I can't show my concern for a teammate, Sir?"

His answering scoff was almost immediate. "Carter, that's bullshit and we both know it. Let me ask you again. Why are you here?"

"Actually, I'm hoping to make things right, Sir. Between the team." She twisted her hands in nervousness, hesitated and continued more softly, "between us."

Still, he lay unmoving in the chair, unwilling to face her, his voice taut with the effort of holding his frustration in check. "We deal, Carter. Whatever happens, happens. End of story."

"Is it?" She paused as though weighing her next words. "Is it that simple, Jack?"

The sound of his given name from her lips made him nearly leap from the chair in surprise, the deliberate term of familiarity sending his heart racing, eroding his determination in a bid to shut her out. Instead, Jack willed himself to slowly stand, trying not to wince at the crack in his back and in his knee. Finally, he turned around to face Carter, arrested by the rush of breathless pleasure that coursed through him as he watched her standing just a few steps away.

So close that he could have crossed the distance in a heartbeat and taken her in-

The stray thought was banished into the darkest reaches of his mind before it was even completed.

_Cut the crap, O'Neill!_ Jack blinked away the imagined scenario, turning his eyes to meet hers straight on, then moved down to rake her form in a bold, sweeping glance.

She was too pale for his liking, but her eyes were dark in the cool, pleasant spring night, glittering with…some kind of purpose that made him more than a tad bit curious.

Jack leaned hard against the balustrade, hearing it creak softly against the strain of his weight and gestured vaguely into the air in invitation.

"So talk."

He wasn't making things easy for her, Sam thought, but then again, when had things ever been easy between them?

She took a deep breath and gathered her courage. "I'd like to apologise for the part I played in not making it easy for you for the past few months. I should have trusted your judgement, Sir. I made such calls before and wish I didn't stop this time. Not when it really mattered."

"Accepted, Major," O'Neill said easily, his stoic expression unchanging and at odds with his generous words. "Wasn't your fault anyway. Anyone could have gotten taken in by our new friends. So, if that's all…" he trailed off meaningfully and made a deliberate move to turn back to his telescope

Sam bristled at his abrupt dismissal, tired of the worn rhetoric that they hid behind and unwilling to believe that he'd let this go so easily. The years in the field with him had taught her that regaining O'Neill's trust when he thought he'd been badly betrayed was an exercise in near-futility. Right now, those barriers of his were firmly up and it was obvious that she needed to scale those high walls and get past them without shredding herself in the painful process.

Yet it was a task near impossible and so intimidating that it would have been easier to ask for the moon.

Because Jack O'Neill didn't let anyone in unless he chose to do so. And pushing at those walls, would probably only achieve the opposite, leaving her strung even further out than when she'd begun.

A harsh, humourless laugh escaped her lips when she realised her naïveté. "So that's it, Sir?"

"If you've said all that you've come to say," he told her evenly, the distinct coolness in his manner somehow more terrifying than his outburst of anger, "then I think, Major, that your job is done."

Here goes, she thought, holding on, despite the high, impassable emotional barricade behind which he clearly stood. "There's more to this isn't it?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" He snapped in response.

"I'm not just talking about the Aschen."

"Carter-" He said warningly, hoping to god that she'd stop there and then. She'd apologised for a professional oversight, he'd willingly accepted, and now they could go on with their lives. Preferably one where the strictest of military protocol could be upheld between them so that he could safely lick his wounds behind these boundaries, a line on which she sometimes danced but one that she'd never dared cross.

But, oh the irony. Where he was reticent, his second-in-command only seemed to have acquired an abundance of bravery. Or stupidity.

"I've always wondered," Sam started out hesitantly, wondering if this reckless visit to her commander's abode was actually a death wish, "if you would have been more forgiving had Ambassador Faxon not been in the picture."

Jack frowned in initial bewilderment, then closed his eyes briefly when the sharp pain of realisation tore through his gut. He had a good inkling just where she was leading this conversation and felt in that instant, more trapped than he was tied down as an Aschen lab rat. He didn't do talking; she was insisting they did. About yet another matter he'd no inclination of revisiting, ever.

An instinctive surge of fury coursed through him, snapping at his wavering self-control, an emotion that he fought to hide by turning his back to her. What the hell was she playing at? Was she here to talk about Joe, or god forbid, _them_? And if she was expecting some sort of confession-

He snapped his jaw tightly shut. There was just no fucking way he could do this. And he was going to make sure it ended there and then.

"You've said what you come to say, Carter. I think you know your way out."

She blanched at the note of finality in his steely voice, knowing somehow that this was the only chance she – _they_ – were going to ever get. "No. You're not sending me on my way because this is far from over."

He looked into her knowing eyes and willed his hands to stop shaking. "No, Major?"

She should have known that pulling rank was what he fell back on. "We're not in the SGC right now. And I'm not here as your second-in-command."

"What's your point, Carter?" He snarled unpleasantly, daring her to go on. "And if this concerns the ambassador…" he left off threateningly.

Sam winced and looked down. Now, as though in retaliation, he was cutting her no slack, forcing her to undertake the difficult part alone. O'Neill hadn't pretended for once that he didn't know what she was talking about, she realised; the façade of denseness hadn't been there the whole night the moment he'd started talking. Instead, his barely-contained anger was rising to the surface, the hurt briefly flashing across his eyes at the very mention of Joe. In an increasingly dangerous game of moves and countermoves, she had never been more keenly aware of how her reciprocal interest in Joe had hurt O'Neill, the man whom she'd long professed in her mind to have no equal.

But she'd been hurt too, a tiny voice in her mind protested. A time ago when the fire-rain fell and he gave up on her. When her alternate had come through the quantum mirror and taken from him what she'd badly wanted…when he now looked to Kynal instead of her…

Sam gave herself a mental shake of her head; if they were merely counting scores, then her purpose here was in vain.

"I'm talking about Joe Faxon and how you must have thought that we were together," she stammered, feeling her courage slowly chipped away by his apparent apathy. "And I think we were. For a while. Because I really wanted someone…normal, something meaningful to come home to, which was why-"

Jack screwed his eyes tightly shut. The fact that she'd sought an exterior source to cultivate something _meaningful_ spoke volumes about what he thought they had. Or rather, didn't have, no matter how small and precious little it was. And it angered him that she'd thought so little of them, of _him_.

He cut in evenly before she got her chance to continue. "It's none of my business what the hell you do with your life and why, Carter." His hands tightened around the balustrade, as though bracing himself for a blow that never came. He really, _really_ didn't want to talk about this anymore, feeling already more exposed than he'd been in years now that she'd revealed exactly what he didn't want to hear.

"I think it bothers you," she told him softly, willing the unease to subside. She hadn't thought that far and going on instinct alone, this conversation was bringing her places she'd never in her life ever dared visit. "But…but you'll not admit to anything even at gunpoint."

_Ya think, Carter? _Faced with her frankness, he flailed for a response, settling finally on one which allowed him to remain in the centre of his comfort zone. "Carter, I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

Denial. A word that could have defined his entire life.

But what she saw gave her enough pluck to continue. In his terseness, he'd revealed already more than what he thought he did.

"I thought I saw you the night I went out with Joe." Her apparent non-sequitur caused him to gasp involuntarily, his hushed intake of air not escaping her notice. "And if it had really been you…" Sam trailed off, stumbling on her next words.

_Is that why you're barely talking to me anymore…or why you're responding to Kynal? _Her unspoken thoughts sounded petulantly childish to her ears.

Yet it was undeniable that SG-1's disagreements over the Aschen had taken on an added dimension for the both of them when the ambassador had come into the picture. Only a tentative foray into a potentially rewarding relationship with another man had helped her know her own heart. Even early on, she knew Joe had sensed her unexplained unwillingness to go further beyond a cup of coffee at a fancy, expensive café.

But had this revelation come too late?

Jack had turned back to face her, his flinty expression giving nothing away. "Why is this so important to you now?"

He hadn't admitted to anything, nor had he denied anything. "Jack…"

"You're getting out of line there, _Major_." The emphasis on her rank stopped her short, the moment of uncertainty returning full-force. With that single word, O'Neill had once again quickly re-drawn the lines of protocol between them with a razor-sharp parry that had rendered her own thrusts ineffective.

Yet it didn't take much intuition to guess that he was also the nastiest when he felt the most vulnerable. And in that, she saw her last and only chance.

"Were you there that night?" She insisted, self-conscious of the way his eyes bore into hers. Then, more softly, "Please, Jack."

Jack stayed silent a long while, breaking his gaze, hearing her whispered plea. He hated this. Hated the confrontation that his second IC was initiating, hated how she was backing him into a corner for a purpose that she hadn't yet revealed when he thought he'd scored a success in wearing her down.

Carter had instead, steadily taken the severity of his responses with a dogged resolve that tested even his own fortitude. He didn't know what she was expecting of him; her sudden determination to tear apart the layers of pretence between them was in truth, scaring the shit out of him. But now, he'd fallen prisoner to her entreaty, helpless when she'd turned pleading eyes to him.

Finally, Jack acquiesced with a small nod, then found himself mildly shocked when her face crumpled in undisguised misery, a myriad of emotions plain on her face.

"I thought I saw you there," she repeated her previous words, staring unhappily at the ground, suddenly unable to meet his eyes. "And I started to suspect that you were angry because…"

He heaved a sigh, tiring of a conversation that seemed to go nowhere. Wherever her probing questions were leading, he had no intention of continuing this fuck of a charade. "It's your life, Carter," Jack cut in acidly, "You're free to do what you like with your beloved ambassador."

"And I thought it mattered to you."

Her frantic words gave him pause. "You thought it mattered to me?"

The acrid taste of failure and defeat was replaced suddenly by a white-hot flare of anger that bloomed in her chest at his callous words. O'Neill had only been cutting her down when she'd tried explaining the delicate situation in which she'd dug for herself, his palpable lack of interest making her more a fool than she already was for hoping that things could have turned out differently.

The deep breath she took only helped part way in calming her spinning thoughts as she struggled to regain some form of equilibrium.

"Whatever, Sir," she told him quietly. "Tonight was a big, stupid mistake. I'm sorry for wasting your time. See you at base tomorrow."

A heavy hand fell on her upper arm, spinning her around just as she turned toward the stairs.

"Finish what you came to say, Carter," he commanded, a feral glint appearing in his dark eyes. "You're no coward, so don't start with me now."

He saw the spark of defiance returning to her face and felt a dark thrill of anticipation hum through his veins.

"Did it matter to you at all that I was seeing Joe? Did it matter that I wanted to pursue something away from you because I mistakenly thought that could have given me a measure of stability? In the same manner that you took up with Laira on Edora?" She snapped in turn, hurt anger giving rise to an overflow of words that now, released from its stilted, emotional confines, refused to stop. "Does it matter to you that I couldn't go any further with Joe even though I wanted to? That all I could think of was you each time I saw him? That I couldn't do normal anymore because all the while I felt as though you wouldn't let me go?"

Her words hit him hard, yet all he could do was stare at her incredulously, his own fury breaking through its feeble restraint of outward calm.

Had it _mattered_ to him? _He_ wouldn't let her go? What the fu-?

Jack fought not to grimace as the memory of the day he saw Carter and Faxon came flooding back, the helpless hurt a physical pain in his chest that still had the power to rob him of his breath. Hadn't he done enough – paradoxically – by doing nothing at all, stilling his action-prone impulses into stoic, silent acceptance while he fought his own demons and desires alone? Hadn't she understood just how much it'd cost him to simply to back away, to create that necessary distance between them because he thought she needed to learn to be happy on her own terms? That he couldn't have mustered the strength to willingly offer his congratulations when she'd sought happiness and fulfilment in another man's arms?

He'd fought the resentment; hell, he wavered between uncertainty and beatific indifference. He wanted her – he'd freely admit it now – but wouldn't let himself need her this way. Not anymore. Not when she could rip him apart again.

Yet all it had taken was a visit from her to throw him back into the sea of confusion and simmering anger. Carter's obvious choice suddenly stung as freshly as it had that very night, the sour, lingering taste of defeat turning his response swift and sharp.

His voice dropped low, its menacing edge a sharp warning to her. "And this is _my_ fault?"

But Carter was already speaking over him, unaware that he was barely holding it together. "All I could feel was that I was betraying you somehow, betraying what we'd confessed during the Za'tarc testing."

"So this is all guilt talking?" Jack asked cynically, a harsh note entering his voice, reminding her of all the reasons that had held her back. "On that very day, you decided for the both of us that it was duty and regulations, honour and integrity above all. What's changed, Carter?"

_What's changed? _His question rang out loud, forcing her to momentarily back away.

Even so, it took her a while to formulate something cohesive as she attempted to untangle the threads of emotions that she'd been feeling of late.

Back then, she'd believed, perhaps naively, that there would be a time – a time in the future – where they were free to show everything they felt to each other. And that in the meantime, their unwavering commitment to the regulations would help protect both their careers.

Yet all it had taken was another man's attention for her to realise that a part of her had held back from her commanding officer for less than honest reasons, that she'd also used the rules as a convenient excuse to keep her distance while she bent them in other ways.

In the weeks that O'Neill had been away, all that time had done was strip away the layer of pretence that had inevitably, caused unintentional hurt to those around her because she hadn't known what she really wanted.

Perhaps then, it was why he thought that her words were hollow.

It was now or never, Sam stubbornly repeated the mantra to herself, feeling as though she was a mere step from free-falling off a precipice – the end of which she desperately hoped would be his arms.

_God, could this be any more difficult? _

There were no guarantees. But there was also no turning back.

She took a deep breath and ran with it. "What's changed is that I'm through with running from my feelings for you. Being with Joe, even for a date or two, made it clear that…I only wanted to be with you. At the same time, it dawned on me that I was stupid to do something like this if my only purpose was to prove that you didn't matter to me. Instead…it only showed me the opposite. Especially after you came back and I learned that you nearly died on that planet," she paused, speaking with difficulty, yet losing none of her typical eloquence. "And I'm here because I think…no, I hope you still feel the same."

Her admission left him breathless and awed by what she'd done. In the space of seconds, anger thawed into disbelief, and disbelief bloomed into irrepressible hope.

_Had she really said what he thought she said? Did she mean…? _He wanted to hear those precious words again, needing to know beyond any doubt, exactly what she meant.

Sam saw the hard lines of his face softening, a strange intensity replacing the unconcerned front that he'd worn the whole night. The forbidden act of confessing all was unexpectedly liberating for her, the lingering remnants of her fear finally dissipating when he wasn't quick enough to stop the flash of vulnerability that had appeared on his face in that precious split-second.

Jack had retreated a step, putting some breathable distance between them again. The moment of uncertainty had passed, yet his dark eyes were pinning her with an blatant stare of exposed need, his presence almost a physical force that was starting to make her tremble.

Finally, he sighed, breaking the growing tension. "I hate to say this, but the nearly dying bit seems to be a regular part of the job. This time's no different."

"It's a risk we take each time we go through the gate," she agreed shakily. "Yeah, so?"

"What I'm sayin' is, I hear you, Sam," he told her more gently, turning his eyes once more towards the clear sky for a moment, giving her a few seconds of respite. "I think you've said a lot for the both of us tonight. And trust me, there's nothing more I'd like to do now than to answer your last question in ways that don't involve words. But I want you to know there's still an option open if you think you want to forget that the last part of this conversation ever happened."

Jack regretted his words as soon as they left his lips, knowing he was deliberately paving a way out of this for her. But it was critical that she knew what the hell she was doing by throwing her lot in with him should they actually step past the point of no return. And if they did, he wanted her explicit consent, despite what she'd just implied.

"Not an option for me."

She'd come too far for this to go back. Instead, she took a timid step closer, stamping down on the urge to turn tail and bolt, then closed the rest of the distance quickly to grab his head and pull his lips down to hers, hoping that was answer enough to the doubts that he'd raised, rewarded in the next second when he responded with a desperation that matched hers. Her lips moved tentatively on his, a shy invitation that he couldn't refuse.

Jack tugged her towards him, their lips still fused together, moving as though trying to absorb her into himself, wanting to devour her whole. Her hands traced a fiery trail across the back of his neck, the pleasure making him shiver, the forbidden nature of her touch leaving him with no inclination to fight his long-suppressed desire anymore.

He sank deeper into her embrace, pushing himself further into the soft planes of her body, breathing a little harder when she wrapped her arms more tightly around him.

Hell, he'd skirted the acceptable boundaries all the time, crossed them completely when it ensured the safety of his team and of Earth. But this…this was something else altogether. His illicit love for Carter was now forced into his face, demanding his explicit admission of its existence.

And it was past terrifying.

He pulled back slightly with difficulty, saw the glazed look of desire that he saw swirling in those stormy blue depths and tried to remember how to form his sentences.

Shit.

"Sam." He pulled back before he lost it completely.

The sudden loss of his solid frame was an unwelcome intrusion. "Jack?"

His dreamily-whispered name on her lips made his stomach flip. "Carter, just what is this? I…" he began, suddenly unsure of what he was going to say next. "This…thing…right now…we're okay with this?"

The earth spun to a halt, the significance of his dazed question not lost on her.

_Sir…None of this has to leave this room. _

_We're okay with that?_

It was an echo of an earlier memory, one that she'd chosen to nip in the bud before it became something too big to handle. But it had grown to a size of an elephant that came to stand between them anyway, an invisible behemoth that hadn't magically disappeared despite their half-hearted measures in ignoring it.

In those few seconds that she'd taken to contemplate what he was asking, Jack had moved away from her, his face once more unreadable as he mistook her hesitation for refusal. The flare of panic that welled inside her had less to do with this regulation-breaking conversation they were having than with his complete withdrawal from her.

With sudden clarity Sam knew he wouldn't do a thing to stop her should she choose to walk away or redraw the crumbling boundaries between them. He'd always left the burden of the decision to her, giving her ample opportunity to keep her career intact and her conscience clear.

How often had she wondered about her numerous alternate reality-selves who were living different outcomes, where the price of peace didn't always equal the cost of personal fulfilment?

Like he'd said, she was no coward when it came to a desired course of action that had been inevitable ever since she'd scaled the ladder to his roof. A hard-fought, miraculous opportunity had fallen into her lap tonight and she wasn't going to fight it any longer.

With a deep breath and a step forward, she surrendered to gravity and let it pull her down.

"No second thoughts."

Then her mouth was back on his, her hands sliding dangerously downwards towards his crotch. He jerked reflexively when he felt her wandering fingers and broke their kiss long enough to grate out three desperate words.

"Bed. Downstairs, now."

"No time." She cast a quick look around, her eyes settling on the blanket that had been discarded by the lounge chair, breaking out of his arms only long enough to spread it carelessly on the wooden floor.

And then their mouths were clinging together once again, their bodies pressed so close that a sliver of light couldn't penetrate the space between them. Gripped by a fierce need for skin on skin contact, their hands simultaneously pulled apart belts, zippers and buttons and by the time he had her beneath him on the rug, the skin of her flat stomach was glistening with the copious leaking from his erection and her own bare thighs were stained with the fluids from her own arousal.

"Shit," he gasped aloud, staring adoringly into her eyes, forcing himself to take a moment before he lost his way in her. "Sam, you're killing me."

His honest admission delighted her. A grin started to spread across her face and morphed into an open-mouthed cry of pleasure when he lowered his head and applied his tongue to the tips of her breast.

Heady with her scent enveloping him, he teased and tortured, finally stopping only when she begged him for more.

Placing his hands on her upper arms, Jack pulled back, revelling in the hitch in her breath when he slowly slid her legs apart. Unable to help himself, he slid a finger slowly down her glistening slit, enthralled by her incoherence moans, barely feeling the deep imprint of her short nails on his back. Satisfied that she was more than enjoying herself, he buried his mouth in her musky wetness as her soft whimpers became a sudden, keening cry.

So apparently, she didn't give a fuck about their location as well.

Her hands tugged hard on his short, silver strands as she writhed her way towards ecstasy, wanting him inside of her now. But he knew what she was demanding; still he didn't let go, his busy tongue unheeding of her wordless pleas, keeping her waiting and wanting.

She panted her surrender, knowing she was shaking and so close to coming that it ached even to move.

He grinned against her throbbing heat and withdrew slowly, seeing her face harsh with need and her swollen flesh that was still wet and pulsing, hovering at the invisible edge of climax. But he'd misjudged just how far gone she was under his ministrations; a deliberate brush of his fingers against her slick folds made her immediately spasm with the beginnings of an orgasm. Not realising just how far he'd pushed her, Jack quickly fell back down with his mouth on her, prolonging all he could of her unexpected climax with renewed efforts.

Her form went limp as her shudders ceased, her eyes staying closed as she fought to catch her breath. Only then did Jack withdraw, wiping his mouth across the back of his hand, his own body humming with growing need. Kneeling between her legs, he lifted her up gently, strangely wanting to see the haze of desire in her blue eyes as he lightly perched her on his hips while trying his damned best to ignore his raging erection. The bright sheen of tears he saw when she opened them made him panic and his passion to deflate momentarily.

Had that been too much-? Or not enough…? Unwittingly, he felt a flush of embarrassment creep up his neck.

"Carter?" Jack murmured into her ear in uncertainty, moving soothing hands up and down her back, nipping lightly along the white column of her neck. "You al-?"

"More than fine." She rushed to quell the slight note of helplessness in his voice, gifting him with a bright smile and a lingering kiss that immediately sent his blood rushing south again. Then, without warning, she lifted her legs, shifted and impaled herself straight onto his hard length. The suddenness of the movement made his hips jerk hard against her just as she gasped a strangled cry of pleasure, throwing out the precarious position in which they held each other.

They tumbled back onto the hard floor with him leaning hard over her and his arms catching her fall. Still seated deep within her, Jack fought the urge to thrust hard, wanting to savour, to prolong the extraordinary feel of her tight channel gripping him. But she was already moving her hips upwards, guiding his large hands to her breasts, moaning and shuddering under his touch when he lightly rubbed his thumbs over the puckered skin.

Her soft command wafted over to his ears. "More, Jack."

A slight grin crossed his face. "Yes, Ma'am."

He obeyed immediately, moving heavily over her, holding her eyes as he thrust deeply, increasing his pace when he felt her body fall into sync with his, their movements intuitive and more attuned to each other's needs after all the years in the field together. He slid in and out of her dripping core, building a steady, pounding rhythm, then slowed and stilled, a movement contrary to his body's desperate cries for release.

At the slight change in rhythm, she flipped them without warning, then swallowed his groan with a brief, forceful kiss. Pleased with the change of position, she moved her hips with the guidance of his hands, throwing her head back in pure sensation when he moved his fingers back down to circle her sensitive skin. He lifted his head and suckled hard on her breast, the exquisite feeling making her shudder and fall into him, inadvertently changing the angle of his penetration. Consequently, he lodged deeper into her, her eyes fluttering shut as he clamped his hands around her hips, tilted her upwards and began thrusting anew. Her muted whimper broke through the sounds of wet flesh upon wet flesh, permeating the quiet night as the beginning ripples of another peak coursed through her.

Feeling her tumbling into oblivion in the next second, Jack crushed her mouth to his to muffle her cries and stilled abruptly in her, her spasms gripping him so tightly that it made him grit his teeth in sheer agony. Yet he tried to ride out the waves of her climax, pulling out of her only when her breathing returned to normal. Then he sat up, still hard and dripping onto the crumpled throw rug and pulled her up roughly with shaky arms, now driven only by pure need.

Wanting all of her. For everything that she had to give, and more.

"Turn around." His terse order made gooseflesh spread all over her arms, the harsh look of desire in his eyes feeding her own.

His grip on her slim hips was tight after she turned and settled on her knees, his body arching over her as his lips placed feather-light kisses over her spine, loving the light sheen of perspiration that coated her back. Not allowing her a sufficient period of recovery, Jack coaxed her to lean back against him after he sought quick re-entry into her pliant body, enslaving her to the relentless friction that built between them once again as he rammed into her over and over, his fingers now faultlessly finding all the spots that made her quiver.

"Sam."

His face was obscured from her, but she heard everything she needed to hear in that whispered groan. He pressed his lips hard against her neck as his straining muscles shook relentlessly with his own impending climax. Instinctively, she arched backwards and pressed herself harder into his probing fingers, taking his length more deeply than before.

And then, she was there. The pressure from within began from a point beneath her spine and rushed to release itself in waves that had her bucking heavily under him. With aftershocks still rippling through her, she relished his last erratic thrusts and frenzied pants, then felt his iron-grip falter and his control snap. He jerked hard twice against her rear, then brought a delicious surge of heat up her tight, wet core when he emptied himself in her, their combined fluids soon after spilling out of her and drenching her trembling thighs.

Jack finally stilled after a long while, then drew her down on her side in front of him as he felt his own heartbeat finally slow. The world shifted back into focus again, his sense of reality gradually returning as he lazily shifted his eyes to take in their surroundings anew.

"Holy crap."

The unexpected expletive that held a wealth of amazed wonder made her giggle and turn to look at him, seeing for the first time, a bright-eyed clarity and vulnerability that shone through his eyes, his face more open than he'd ever cared to show.

"That was…" Her mind was sluggish, her struggle for words this time around making him smirk. She tried again, running a gentle finger down his cheek. "Jack, you know I…"

He shook his head and stopped her with a finger to her mouth, somehow reluctant to let her give verbal expression to the sacrosanct nature of all that had transpired between them in the past hour. Instead, he reached for both her hands and brought them reverently to his lips in a gesture that she mistily thought surpassed a thousand declarations of affection.

"I know."


	14. Jigsaw

**Chapter 14 - Jigsaw**

**SGC  
Colorado Springs  
May 17, 2001**

With a flick of a switch, the projector lit up to display a cluster of worlds that lay within Aschen-controlled territory. In the next second, Carter's voice rang clearly through the darkened briefing room.

"What you see here are two planets in neighbouring star clusters separated by a distance of nine thousand light years, differentiated more clearly by the initial alpha-numeric symbols of their planetary designations P3 and P6. Yet according to Dr. Kemp's report, P6C-992, also known as Turenne, bears the strongest cultural and linguistic resemblance to P3W-225, also known as Verlamion."

A quick push of a button on the presentation remote dissolved the images of the nebulae and the star clusters on the screen and brought up a three-dimensional grid that charted the distance between two planets.

"As far as we know, the distance can be bridged by an interstellar craft capable of faster-than-light travel in a period of five to eight days, depending on its hyperdrive engines specifications. Coincidentally, P6C-992 is one of the worlds in this cluster that is the most affected by stellar drift. Its location is near impossible to determine without the calculations facilitated by the DHD."

Hammond made a few notes on his report then asked, "Is it safe to say, Major, that the Aschen has never found this world or known of its existence?"

Sam pursed her lips in thought. "Considering the necessity of a DHD in this case, I'd say no, Sir."

"So what we're possibly looking at are two worlds that diverged from the point of the plague and from the arrival of the Aschen," Daniel hypothesised, "the Keltia being the original group, so to speak."

"Indeed."

"Sir, permission to gate-"

Hammond didn't let O'Neill finish. "Granted."

"I suppose the question now is, should we tell the inhabitants of P6C-992 that their ancestors are actually still alive and living primitively under the, uh, influence of the Aschen?"

"And things might just get worse if we do just that," Jack cut in with a frown.

"I know about the no-interference rule and all, but should the Celti remain ignorant about their ancestors?"

"Taking into account our responsibility to the wider galaxy, I would be asking that same question. But Colonel O'Neill has a point, Dr. Jackson. In this particular situation, we might find ourselves obligated to reunite the Celti with the people of their original home world should they request it. However, we've been operating in exceptional circumstances in the past few months that there's no guarantee there wouldn't be changes in the SGC operational structure that might curtail gate travel and consequently, limit our ability to follow up on any agreement made with cultures off-world."

In the sombre silence, Hammond saw the members of SG-1 exchange troubled, knowing looks.

"To focus on the present however, an exact connection between the plague and the Aschen hasn't yet been determined. So it seems that this question can only be answered sufficiently after another visit to P6C-992."

"In fact, let's consider something more," Daniel offered. "We might be dealing with the possibility that the Aschen were the originators of the plague, employing in effect, a bio-weapon against planets within their cluster in order to colonise them."

A telling silence descended once again in the briefing room as Daniel's words sank in, punctuated only by the restless clicks of the pen that O'Neill held between his fingers.

"Wouldn't surprise me if they tried anything and everything," he muttered darkly.

"Do you think that this could be the same bio-weapon that the Aschen has promised us against Earth's enemies?" Daniel continued after a significant pause, "Or something that they were eventually planning to use against us?"

"And how do we determine that?" Hammond asked.

Sam's head snapped up at Hammond's question, an idea already forming in her mind. "I know this sounds like a long shot, Sir, but we already have the blueprints of the bio-weapon that the Aschen have engineered for Earth. All we need now is a sample of mitochondrial DNA or plasmid DNA from samples of a plague victim who died on P6C-992 in order to determine how the bio-weapon adapted itself to its human hosts. Hopefully the DNA remnants could be genetically reconstructed for us to make a reasonable comparison with Earth's bio-weapon."

A sketch of dark, indistinct forms took shape on the blank sheet of paper that was the flip side of Jack's mission briefing notes. "Whatever it is, Sir, we've got good enough reason to go back."

Teal'c tilted his head slightly in support of O'Neill's pronouncement. "Indeed. The situation is worrying. The Tau'ri will be defenceless against such a weapon if it is employed against Earth."

Hammond sucked in a deep breath, the worry on his face creasing even deeper lines in his forehead. "Agreed. And seeing as I've had all markers called in to get an audience with the President and was denied, this is our best course of action. Okay people, your orders on this mission are to officially continue the exploration of the planet that SG-15 began and establish closer relations with its people," he said, conveying a wordless subtext that left no room for misunderstanding.

Grim satisfaction laced O'Neill's reply. "You know me, Sir. I'm all for meeting new people."

"General, what about the Asgard and the Tok'ra?"

"Incommunicado, Carter. As they tend to be at the worst of times," Jack cut in steadily. "We're on our own."

Another nod from Hammond confirmed the Colonel's dire pronouncement. "Colonel O'Neill is right. We have received no response from either."

"Excuse me, General." A voice drifted over from the top of the staircase. Four pairs of eyes turned to a hassled Walter Harriman who was consulting a clipboard in his hand as he spoke.

"What is it, Chief?"

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Sir, but Sorel, Hedin and Kynal are about to leave for P4A-121 with SG-6 and SG-3. They are saying their goodbyes."

"Thank you, Sergeant. We're done here. SG-1, you leave in an hour," Hammond said. "Dismissed."

* * *

Saying goodbye was easier than Jack thought it would be. Especially to a woman who had shown keen interest in him – an interest that he'd briefly tried and failed to reciprocate.

Jack stepped into the gate room with the rest of SG-1 on his tail, his face breaking into a smile when he saw the people who'd helped haul him home.

"Jack! I did not think you would join us," Hedin greeted.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," he replied easily, taking a look at SG-3 and SG6 ready and at attention as he strode towards the three members of the Resistance. "Well, I won't be going with you this time."

"I am sorry to hear that," Sorel put in with a rueful smile, holding his hand out. "General Hammond has been instrumental in coordinating our resettlement plans on our new home planet. It will be a long rebuilding process. We can't thank you enough for your efforts."

"You did most of the work yourself."

The disbelief in Hedin's face showed as a deep frown. "You underestimate how much you have positively altered our plans. We would not be standing here alive, without you and your team."

Jack shrugged the praise away uncomfortably. The short part he'd played in their grander plans had merely accelerated and altered what the Resistance had already scripted all along. If anything, he'd been equally thankful that they came at the opportune time when things got more hairy than he'd liked on that ice planet. "Our own planet's not exactly in good shape right now."

"We heard about that from General Hammond. I wish you all the best and hope you will continue to be friends with our people."

"You betcha'. We'll talk again when you get things going." Half-dreading the next moment, Jack turned to Kynal uneasily, offering his hand to her. "Kynal."

But the blond woman merely looked pleased to see him, gently tugging at his hand and pulling him into a hug.

"Jack. It is good to see you again, even if it is to say goodbye."

It was a struggle not to show the relief that overwhelmed him. Her arms were loose around his back and as she withdrew, she placed a soft kiss on his cheek in farewell as his hands automatically went into his BDU's jacket pocket.

He hoped Carter wasn't looking too closely at the moment, the slight twinge of guilt nevertheless a small prick on his conscience.

"I had hoped that…" she trailed off delicately, wordlessly begging for his understanding. "That…"

That they could have built on their friendship had he not already been so heavily invested in another, Jack continued the sentence silently. He exhaled slowly, awkwardly, wishing he knew what to say. "Yeah, Kynal, I…"

"Say no more," she smiled with difficulty. "I understand. I wish you well, Jack."

"Thank you," he told her quietly, grateful for her gracious manner despite her obvious disappointment, because he'd never felt happier in the last week. All because Carter was now firmly in his life, a fact that still floored him with disbelief at odd hours of the day. In the blissful week that they'd been away, his thoughts had lain solely with her, marvelling afresh in the memories of the night they'd frantically coupled on his roof and how that had given way to a contented peace in the morning when she awoke in his bed.

It hadn't changed the fact that they'd broken all manner of regulations. But even in the cold light of day, the immediate aftermath – of career-breaking court-martials and nattering gossip – paled in comparison to the sudden, terrifying advent of an Earth-Aschen future that had unexpectedly interrupted the momentum of their fight against the Goa'uld, a war that had seemed to keep the status quo between them going for all the wrong reasons.

The kawoosh of the stabilising wormhole halted his thoughts. Unable to help himself, Jack stole a glance at Carter but found her turned away from him, talking animatedly to a scientist in Reynolds's team.

Hammond's voice rang out clearly from the speakers. "SG-3 and SG-6, you have a go. And the three of you, good luck."

With their hands raised in farewell, Hedin, Sorel and Kynal stepped through the wormhole without looking back. The gate room slowly emptied of personnel, yet Jack stayed on, looking absently at the gate even after the wormhole had snapped shut.

Somehow, he knew he was never going to see them again.

* * *

**P6C-992  
Turenne  
May 18, 2001**

"Can't sleep?"

The tenseness in Jack's posture belied his casual response. "Just…enjoying the breeze. You couldn't sleep too?"

Sam snorted and dropped down on the bench next to him in the quiet night air, a situation so similar to the one they'd shared on Aschen Prime. Back then, she thought, their silences had been full of unspoken words and double-speak. But that had all changed one night, when the space between them slowly crumbled into dust and the strain, once near breaking point, had since melted into an understated ease when they spoke.

The intense week she and Jack had recently shared bridged more than physical distance. She'd learnt to confess with no small amount of difficulty what she had really been feeling, and he'd learnt to talk – really talk – about how unhappy he'd been when the team hadn't backed him up, how betrayed he'd felt when Faxon had come into the picture.

As a result, they'd both given actual voices to the unspoken lines of communication between them that they'd always assumed were in working order, both also realising, to their chagrin, that the synchronistic rhythm they'd developed in the field had stuttered and faltered emotionally more than they'd thought it would.

In the end, as that last barrier of pretence gradually fell away, words had mattered after all. Alongside a rapidly developing intuition about each other's bodies, the cathartic clarity that came with talking had brought them closer in sync in both thought and deed, a fact that she suspected terrified him as much as her.

The first passionate, consensual tumble between the sheets had been what both of them had wanted, despite knowing that the sheer clandestine nature of what they were doing might bring unforeseen consequences that would make them wish they had never even begun down this treacherous path.

Yet regrets were futile. The choice to live in the present had already been made, the uncertainty of not surviving another day having already borne down on her heavily when she learnt just how close they'd come to losing him.

If anything, it was simply good to discover that whatever they'd started a week ago, she'd kept her head on the base, around him as her CO. They'd made no promises to each other during those short-lived, blissful days. But there was an unspoken agreement that they needed to relook things sooner rather than later.

For once, throwing caution to the wind had ironically both clipped her wings and made her take flight. It was then that she realised contentment was an unfamiliar feeling.

A large, masculine hand found its way to hers and covered her smaller one almost shyly. The light, absent strokes of his fingers on the back of her hand made her turn to him. Even in the darkness, his eyes were distant.

"I woke up for a watch that wasn't necessary this time round," she said, remembering his initial question with some difficulty. "So what's up?"

He cast her a meaningful look, the slight shake of his head near imperceptible. "Nothin'. Well, just thinkin' about tomorrow."

That vague admission was enough for her, the short phrase saying all he needed to say to convey his sense of unease. "For once, you're the one doing the thinking," she told him dryly, shuffling closer, wanting him nearer. "What's the world coming to?"

Obligingly, he threw a light arm over her shoulders. "Funny, Carter," he said with a mock-glare, feeling her chuckle rather than hearing it.

"We've got to be up in three hours, Jack," she reminded him.

"Yeah, I know." He gave a low sigh and took another look around but made no move to return to his quarters. The guest bed was sufficiently comfortable and the facilities more than adequate. The reluctance to go to bed, if he were honest, stemmed from the deep-seated fear that he'd wake in chains and relive a nightmare, the clutches from which he found he only escaped temporarily when she was around. So he stayed up, despite his exhaustion and the pounding headache that was threatening to worsen.

He turned to her but found her staring absently at the low shrub fences that formed the perimeter of the Turenne visitor quarters. He followed her gaze, noticing the elegant simplicity to the décor of the whole place. A memory of fur-lined beds in mud-huts and cold grounds flashed through his mind, a mental image he held onto as he took a more careful look around.

Turenne's accommodation was a far cry from the primitive sleeping grounds of the Keltia, he noticed. For the Keltia to have once been-

Sam spoke, interrupting his observation with a statement that echoed his half-finished thought. "Hard to believe the Keltia were like this before."

Jack looked up in mild amazement at the directions in which her own thoughts went, then wondered why he was surprised at just how attuned to each other they were. "You should have seen how they live on the other planet," he said seriously, remembering the early days of his once-covert mission with a team other than SG-1. Back then, the frustration of hitting dead ends was nothing compared to what had happened later in the experimental facility. "The differences couldn't be greater."

The Celti, like their relations, had been welcoming, their stories also closely corroborating the historical accounts of Verlamion. Give or take a few millennia.

But after a meeting-the-natives session, he was convinced enough to believe that they were one and the same people, spilt from the original home world years ago yet keeping a certain level of technology that had been completely wiped from the Keltia.

"I've read the reports and heard your accounts," she responded in kind. "But I guess nothing beats seeing the real thing."

"I want to know what you think, Carter." He shot her a quick, sideways glance, no longer disguising the fact that her opinion had always meant something more infinitely precious to him than it was supposed to.

Sam paused, taking her time to really think about what he was asking, struck again by how this moment paralleled the conversation they had in the visitors' quadrant in the Aschen homeworld all those months ago. Their talks in the past week had been about them, the friction between the team and even a little about their families, but they hadn't exactly talked about this particular issue. Yet enough had happened in between – the change between them notwithstanding – for her to say what she thought with nothing less than complete honesty.

Reverting to his rank was the doing of unconscious thought. "I'm almost afraid of what we'll find, Sir. I'd hoped, for years that we would find an ally to help us against the Goa'uld. Wanted it so much, in fact, that it was hard to stop and think of what we were actually doing. But what Daniel and I found in Volia…what you've been through…" she ploughed ahead hurriedly, seeing the slight wince appear on his face, "you know, Jack, as regrettable as this chain of events was, it did lead to something that both of us wanted."

A slight smile crossed his face in reply as he heard the quiet certainty in her words. Bridging the gap – he nearly choked at the euphemism – with Carter had been a major step in mending the strained relationships within SG-1. But equally important was an overdue conversation with Daniel a few days ago that showed up the tenuous, difficult relationship they've had the last few months. One that was filled with forced politeness and awkward, useless banter, the end of which was a less-than-tacit consent that he had been right all along.

Jack sighed, brushed away the memory and shifted his attention back to Carter, raising his eyebrows and spearing her with a mock-innocent look.

"Cake and jello. Things we both want," he reaffirmed, grinning briefly when she laughed softly. Two different types of foods, placed deliberately together in the same sentence, obliquely reinforcing what she'd said.

The amusement on her face faded when the moment passed. "I get the feeling that we're getting into this deeper than we can handle. The whole Earth situation, I mean."

Jack recognised the similar unease she felt. He'd felt that way after all for months. SG-1 had gated to Turenne under Hammond's strict orders of not mentioning any word of the Aschen to the people. A creative mix of half-truths and some direct but friendly questioning of Turenne's inhabitants merely confirmed that Verlamion had indeed been the planet the Celti had fled. It brought them a step closer to unravelling just who the Aschen were, despite his entire distaste for the existing state of affairs.

But Carter knew as well as he did, just how far negotiations had gone back on Earth. Now mired with the ambitions of politicians, the Earth-Aschen alliance had become fertile ground in which the top brass played their dirty games in their bid for power.

"A step at a time, Carter." A little more quietly, he added, "It's how I get through things."

A corner of her mouth tilted in wry amusement. "Essentially, shoot something and hope for the best."

"Hey!" He exclaimed defensively. "Once thing I've learnt, Carter, is that no matter how bad you are, there's always someone worse. Some bigger, bad…der, bad ass."

She shot him a mock-innocent look at his indignation. "Yeah. But I'm...worried," she admitted.

"Me too," he confessed softly, an admission that surprised her to no end. Then, not wanting either of them to dwell morosely on the state of affairs, he ploughed on with a jaunty rejoinder without missing a beat before she could even reply, "You know, beating the Aschen can only reinforce our overwhelming coolness. I've seen the movie. We superheroes come out tops."

A smile at his poor attempt at lame humour turned into a yawn that didn't escape his notice. "The universe has a way of proving us wrong sometimes. Quite spectacularly."

"Hey, who's the pessimist here?" Jack asked her mockingly. Then, the affection subtle but clear in his face, he told her, "Get some sleep, Miss glass-is-half-empty. And that's an order."

The remembrance of how he had wound Samuels up at their very first meeting in the briefing room came flooding back. Hearing it said again with none of the biting sarcasm made her grin.

But all Jack saw was a smile that he thought could rival the coming daybreak.

"Yes, Sir. See you in a few hours."

* * *

A vast mountain range to the east was visible in the clear day, each individual snow-capped peak reflecting the rays of the sun to bathe the valleys in shimmering green. In the morning glare, the chain of low–lying islands ahead looked like pieces of floating biscuit bits on shimmering blue water as the small glider craft carrying SG-1 and a Celti representative approached from the south.

"I see it." Daniel pointed out a miniscule white patch that stood among the undulating hills.

The craft banked gently left, rushed past the steep cliffs that protruded out to sea, then slowed and descended a few metres away from the burial site.

Jack whistled low in open appreciation. "Whoa, would you look at that."

"Wow," Sam echoed his sentiments, equally transfixed by the impressive sight before them.

A small building stood near where the craft landed, surrounded and dwarfed by a protective ring of monolithic memorial stones, covered in a lattice of thin blue laser beams. Through the gaps in the stones, the golden beams of the sun cast extraordinary shadows on the building's plain white walls, seamlessly integrating the straight lines of the security beams to form knotted, geometric patterns resembling ancient Celtic symbols.

The paradox of the place, Daniel thought. Where myth, tradition and technology co-existed comfortably without anyone blinking an eye. "This structure looks like a smaller version of Stonehenge," he commented as he readied himself for exit. "Keanan, are these stones specifically made for burial purposes?"

"When those who were infected by the plague had died, a group of the Celti returned to bury them under these stones," the Celti pilot and mission commander explained and pointed towards the monoliths. "Their large size aids us in identifying where the grave sites are. More importantly, their bodies are buried in a circular fashion as a reminder to us that they died outside our community but still remain very much a part of it."

The quiet whoosh of the opening hatch let in a cool gust of fresh air as they walked off the ramp and onto a manicured lawn.

"The burial ground is immaculate," Teal'c observed.

"We do not forget those we have lost," Keanan said, holding out an electronic key that silently disabled the security systems. "Taking care of their burial sites is our way of remembering those we couldn't take care of during that difficult time. This way please."

The outer doors swung open to reveal an interior lit by a multitude of yellow and white lights. Encased in glass and lining the entire left wall were the last belongings of the Celti who had enough to escape their original homeworld but succumbed to the plague.

Keanan keyed in a command into the wall panel. A second later, it slid open to reveal the yellowed skeleton of a man held intact and upright by a thick glass case on which several words had been engraved.

"This is Nualla. The chieftain of our people who led us out of our homeworld and into this place. He fell to the plague a hundred years ago. It was upon his insistence that those afflicted with the disease were to live and die apart from the rest of their people. But it was also his wish that we remember those who never lived their lives as they should have in our new home."

Quarantine procedures. Smart man, Jack thought as he walked closer to examine the bones.

"Would you mind if we examined Nualla's remains, Keanan?" Sam asked.

The polite request caused Keanan to hesitate. "I…forgive me, but this is a difficult decision, Major Carter. You are talking about a revered man."

She rushed to reassure the wavering representative. "We mean no disrespect. I promise we only need a small sample from his bones in order to reconstruct the illness that he died from. Please. This will go a long way in helping our people."

Daniel caught on after exchanging a quick look with Jack. "Surely your chieftain would wish he did not perish in vain but that his remains could have helped generations and even other worlds?"

"Dr. Jackson, you drive a hard bargain," Keanan said with a small smile, recognising the archaeologist's appeal to the heroic nature of the Celti.

In the end, it took the combined effort of SG-1's negotiation skills along with the bargaining chips of two shipments of antibiotics and a year's supply of genetically-modified wheat seedlings before Keanan capitulated.

"I need you to promise however, that the results of your research will not be employed for purposes that would cause any harm," he told them seriously.

"The Tau'ri who stand before you are honourable persons," Teal'c offered.

"Cross our hearts and hope to…live," Jack added sombrely, inadvertently eliciting a small smile from Carter.

A flash of bewilderment crossed Keanan's face before he reluctantly nodded and offered them outfits resembling biocontainment suits.

"You will need these before I remove the glass casing."

Jack struggled into the uncomfortable confines of his suit, settling in to watch Carter work just as a hiss signalled the removal of the protective glass cover. _Hello, Yorick_, he thought as Carter's gloved fingers gingerly brought out the skull that had long been detached from the spinal cord. It was strangely soothing to see her work, her movements precise yet fluid as she took swabs from the teeth and from the space inside the jawbone before placing the samples into several airtight containers that she'd brought along.

Her pronouncement broke the spell that seemed to have fallen over the small group as she worked. "I'm done."

The replying hiss of the glass casket closed over Nualla's remains just as Keanan motioned that it was safe for them to get out of their suits. Jack pulled his off as quickly as he could, then turned and helped Carter with hers, the not-so accidental brush of her hand against his causing their eyes to meet and hold.

"Well done, Major," he murmured as he helped her out of her head gear and caught sight of her relieved smile.

"Thank you, Sir."

Their small, intimate moment was broken by Daniel's sudden exclamation. Jack was quick to put some distance between them as he turned away from her to look at what Daniel was doing.

"Daniel?"

The archaeologist was already striding towards the glass coffin, bending to study the small engraving on Nualla's casket. "What does this mean, Keanan?"

"It means '_we remember_'."

"We remember," he echoed absently, then turned and rummaged for something in his pack until he saw what he wanted. "Got it, I got it…"

A crumpled notebook that had seen better days appeared in his hand, their creased pages rumpled further by his impatient flips.

Sam cast an anxious glance to her commanding officer before turning her attention to the archaeologist who was still muttering softly to himself. "Daniel, what is it?"

"This is important," he insisted as he scribbled something down. "I just realised that the words 'we remember' on the glass case sounded like the third person conjugation in modern Irish. _Cuimhnímid_, in modern Irish, means 'we remember' as opposed to the Turenne variant of-" he broke off sheepishly, looking at the bewildered faces that looked back at him. "Look, Jack, you've read the report. Sam and I went to Volia and I couldn't translate a particular word from a-"

Jack waved an impatient hand. "I know, I read it. And?"

"And I just realised that the language of Turenne bears enough of a resemblance to the Celtic languages of Earth. And this might be a long shot, but with this link, I might be able to do up a linguistic comparison between the Celtic variants of Earth and the one spoken by the Volians." He turned quickly to Keanan and pointed out a scribble in his notebook, "Would you mind reading this word aloud for me? The way you might read it in your own language. I couldn't quite translate it."

"_Amberanth_."

"Do you understand what it means?"

"No," Keanan shook his head. "It is unfamiliar. But it reminds me of the dialect that my parents used to speak which has since become extinct when they died a few years ago."

"A dialect that has this word?"

"_'Emeranti' _is the word I heard often from by parents. '_Aimride' _is the equivalent in our language," Keanan confirmed.

The dawning awareness in Daniel's face would have been comical if not for the gravity of the situation. "Of course," he breathed in realisation, "_Amberanth_…_Aimride_…"

"Daniel?"

But the growing impatience in his friend's voice was lost on him as the meaning of a single word sank in.

"Jack, the language of the Volians is a form of proto-Celtic that bears a similarity to the tongue of the ancient Welsh people. The people of Turenne however, speak a form of Irish Gaelic that is an evolutionary descendant of proto-Celtic. What I'm getting at is this: the languages that have evolved on Earth through time have in fact, evolved at a much quicker pace here. Essentially, Keanan has just confirmed an obvious link between these languages, so '_Aimride_' in Irish Gaelicor in this case_, 'Amberanth_' in Volia's Proto-Celtic would mean…" Daniel paused to clear his suddenly-dry throat, "sterility."


	15. Testing

**Chapter 15 - Testing**

**SGC  
Colorado Springs  
May 20, 2001**

"Speaking of Frasier, where is our Napoleonic power monger?"

"I saw her in the med lab earlier, Sir, but-"

"Sorry I'm late, everyone." Janet Frasier hurried up the stairs into the briefing room clutching a bundle of folders that she hurriedly handed out. "The computers have only just finished processing the results of the last simulation that Major Carter and I began a few hours ago."

"Take a seat, Doctor. What do you have for us?"

"What we've found isn't very promising, unfortunately. A pathogen resides in the skull samples that SG-1 brought back from P6C-992; more specifically, it is a bacterium whose genome consists of a single chromosome that is approximately 5.9 million units long. Best transmitted by airborne contagion, this microbe is particularly virulent in humans because it attacks a stretch of genetic code that affects the immune system. Mortality rate is near a hundred percent especially if the disease is not contained in its early stages."

"Sounds like the bubonic plague that ravaged Europe in medieval times."

"That's a fair comparison, Daniel," Sam said. "In fact, Janet and I ran a few tests to determine how the microbe could be destroyed and the results were unsatisfactory. Where casualties of the bubonic plague could have been reduced by the use of a modern antibiotic like Tetracycline, there didn't seem to be a way out for those on P6C-992 who were affected by the pathogen. In fact, the bacteria multiply in the lymph nodes, releasing itself into the bloodstream where it overwhelms the body's defensive systems, leading to death. What makes this pathogen so deadly however, is a genetic structure that has been carefully constructed to neutralise any broad-spectrum antibiotic."

"The Keltia never stood a chance then? Not even with their fancy technology and medical advancements?"

"It is hard to say, Colonel," Janet replied, "The genome of the Keltia and the Celti differs slightly from the humans on Earth. In fact, there are flaws in their genome that do not exist in the human genome and vice versa and it appears that the pathogen capitalises on these weakness, thereby accounting for its virulence."

"Custom-made bug?"

"Actually, yes," Janet admitted.

"And it seems designed to wipe out all life on Verlamion," Daniel added. "Leaving only a handful to survive who have no memories of their past."

"As unfortunate and tragic as that was, Dr. Jackson, right now, my only concern is our own planet," Hammond said, then turned to the doctor again. "Did you run the test the bio-weapon as well?"

"Yes Sir. The Aschen told us that the bio-weapon they were going to provide consisted of a living, radioactive, genetic material that was designed to attack and destroy only the specific DNA of our enemies. Our initial tests determined that there was a proportion of an unknown radioactive isotope that appeared to be part of a stabilising compound facilitating the destructive action of the genetic material. In our subsequent retesting, we went a step further by introducing synthetic samples of differing genomes. What we found out was that it merely took a nanosecond for the bio-weapon to adapt itself quickly to these differences, with the aid of the radioactive half-life of the isotope. In the case of the human genome, the genetic material in the bio-weapon actually re-codes the sequences in our genes to produce porous and brittle cell membranes that are incapable of healing a wound as minor as a paper cut."

"Meaning?" Jack prompted blandly.

"Meaning, Sir, that by this point, all it would take is the spread of the common cold to bring down the entire planet."

A fresh chill that had little to do with the controlled ambient temperature of the base settled in the briefing room.

"This is…bad."

"Indeed, Daniel Jackson."

"Dr. Frasier, if this weapon were to be used against us, what sort of medical counter-measures do we have?" Hammond asked.

"General, we don't even recognise the element in the bio-weapon, let alone talk about re-engineering its structure. We're seeing a sophisticated combination of technology and molecular biology unlike what we've ever experienced before. As for a cure…" she shook her head, "the ability to create one depends on our knowledge of the weapon, which is frankly, almost next to nothing. At this point in time, we can't reverse a process that we don't even fully understand.

The narrowed eyes of her CO and the deep frown etched into his forehead told her more than words ever could.

"Moreover, I daresay that the Aschen had have conducted many experiments, Sir." Janet cast a wary glance at O'Neill before continuing, "Their development of biological warfare is at a highly-advanced stage. The plague that swept P3W-225 was merely one of the multiple ways in which Aschen seem to deal with their enemies."

Sam shook her head slightly. "Whatever their motivation might be, I think we've got something to be worried about."

"Indeed. The Aschen may be more formidable than the Goa'uld as enemies if the alliance comes to pass."

But that wasn't only the piece of bad news that Frasier had. "Unfortunately, there's more."

"More?" O'Neill's loud exclamation of disbelief was drowned out by Daniel's incredulous question.

"Could this get any worse?"

Janet gave a slow nod of her head. "We ran tests on the vaccines."

"Don't tell me th-"

"Oy."

"I'm afraid so, Colonel," she said. "If you remember, we were told that there were three shots, or rather, three stages in the anti-aging vaccines delivered over a period to everyone on Earth. Unfortunately, the first two vaccines that are supposed to address problems of disease and immunity actually contain a peculiar element that had remained undetectable until now because our doctors and scientists had only run the standard procedures for pharmaceutical substance testing. This time, in addition to repeating these processes, we subjected the samples to chromatographic tests and isotopic separation, the results of which yielded minute amounts of a residual matter that shares the properties of Caesium."

A belated sigh from O'Neill was the only response in the otherwise quiet briefing room. "English, Doc."

"Even a small amount of exposure to Caesium radioisotopes can result in reduced fertility, causing permanent damage to the ovaries and reduced concentrations of spermatozoa," Janet said finally, seeing Hammond and all the members of SG-1 struggling to come to terms with the unpleasant implications of what she was going to say next. Her voice was tinged with regret when she continued, "The Aschen vaccine exhibits a similar result, but stealthily disguises itself as medicinal residues in the body. Essentially, the human race wouldn't even be aware of the gradual process of declining fertility."

"What about the third vaccine?"

"The third vaccine does, in part, reverse the damages done to the telomeres by tackling oxidative stress. It contains an additional, inert compound that we initially thought helped accelerate cellular regeneration, but this compound is in fact, a substance that acts as a booster shot to keep a constant rate of declining fertility. So if the bio-weapon doesn't get to us first, sterility would," Janet concluded.

"There must be something we can do." The seriousness in O'Neill's quiet rejoinder drew everyone's attention.

"Sir, if there's anything that I can offer…"

Hammond wasn't surprised to see the Colonel's faithful second offer her support immediately after he did and was even less surprised when Teal'c and Daniel followed.

He gave the team a nod of acknowledgement, pleased more with the restored dynamics of the team than their show of support. The week that they'd been given to get their act together had worked; whatever transpired between them during this time seemed to have fixed the overwrought tension that had overshadowed the team since the Earth-Aschen alliance got under way.

Deep loyalty, along with a large dose of impulsive recklessness epitomised SG-1, yet it wasn't too long ago that he thought this exhilarating yet exasperating combination of personalities that had brought them together was also going to tear them apart. It was easy – perhaps too easy – to get carried away by this particular expectation because SG-1 had always delivered.

But could they do the impossible again?

In the end, his reply was measured and cautious. "I appreciate that, Major. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some calls to make. Dismissed."

* * *

**Colorado Springs  
May 20, 2001**

One down. Another to go.

Jack stared briefly at the hard, dry aspirin tablet, then tossed it into his mouth and chased its bitterness down with a cool rush of water.

The headache that had begun as mild throbbing discomfort earlier in the day during the briefing hadn't abated. Instead, he had only been more fatigued in the past days than he'd cared to admit, knowing instinctively that it marked the return of the familiar symptoms that he'd exhibited during those days spent in the experimental facility.

Kynal's words returned in a flash, her words washing over him with the same amount of dread that he'd felt when he first heard them.

_The Aschen injected you with a drug that was meant to render a person less resistant to sickness. All I could do was to give you a counteragent to try to reverse the effects the day before we rescued you._

No one had really known how the drugs would have affected him. But he'd for a short time, believed – truly believed – that Kynal had managed to reverse the effects of the Aschen experiments after Frasier had cautiously proclaimed him in good health upon his return.

He most probably needed Frasier's help again. And he'd bet his damn life on it that it wasn't going to be good news that was coming his way.

Jack shifted uncomfortably from his upright position on the couch, then stilled when he realised that the peacefully sleeping woman huddled next to him was starting to stir restlessly. Absently, he picked up the remote and switched channels on the television in a vain attempt to distract himself from the throbbing pain.

An unusual cacophony of sounds that accompanied his channel surfing woke her up. Instinctively, Sam unsteadily moved to sit up, only to be stopped by an apologetic hand on her shoulders.

"Didn't mean to wake you." He told her distractedly, his eyes already trained on a breaking news report.

A quick glance at her watch told her she'd slept longer than she expected. "It's alright. Hadn't counted on falling asleep anyway." Sam perused his face intently, seeing his furrowed brow. "You okay?"

"It's nothing. Just a headache." He shrugged off her question and gestured to the screen. "Think you might want to see this."

The light of the television cast a sallow hue on his face, throwing the planes of his features into sharp relief. Sam blinked blearily at the terseness in his voice, then shifted her eyes to what exactly had captured his attention.

What she saw made her sit upright in shock.

"Is this what…?"

"I hope not," he said bluntly. "Because this son-of-"

The sudden burst of an animated voice through the television speakers stopped him mid-sentence.

_"I am standing here just outside Evansville, Indiana, where thousands have gathered in anticipation of Senator Robert Kinsey's announcement of his run for Presidency. The atmosphere is electric as his supporters await Senator Kinsey's arrival…"_

Sam exhaled long and hard, sinking further into the cushions. "Oh god."

"You said it."

"The Earth-Aschen alliance is only going to give him the leverage that he needs," she murmured. "Imagine the repercussions if he gets elected President."

"I don't have to imagine. That's gonna happen sooner rather than later. Kinsey's stakes have gotten higher in the whole dirty game up there. He's got more people backing him and it's giving him the balls and the opportunities to push for many changes."

Sam threw him a sharp look, the implications of Jack's prediction causing her stomach to do a flip.

She knew, as much as Jack did, that expediency had always been behind his soaring rhetoric of religious altruism. Kinsey's protection of rogue NID agents and the use of the Stargate program for personal, financial gain – even if it was temporarily halted under blackmail – was proof positive that they were dealing with someone whose connections possibly ran deeper and farther than Hammond and the SGC could handle.

Kinsey had always played the consummate politician's game. This was no different.

And it conveniently worked to his advantage when he'd firmly declared himself a proponent of a quick transition over to a new governmental order as soon as the Earth-Aschen alliance was formalised.

"The premature disclosure of the SGC being one of the first many changes," she concluded, leaning forward intently to watch the rest of the report unfold. "Then comes the push to deliver the Aschen vaccines first to the poor households. The dissolution of the military, international disarmament treaties…the whole works."

"We'd be giving up control of the very thing that might save the damn planet. And there's nothing we can do about it."

She heard the slight catch in his voice, the realisation dawning on her in the next second. "You're talking about the gate. God, I don't know wh-"

The appearance of a familiar figure and his security detail on screen temporarily halted her next words. Kinsey's walk to the podium was purposeful, his wide smile at the cameras an abhorrent mockery of what they'd only ever known about him.

His words rang out in the next moment. Cadenced, persuasive. Poisonous.

_"To my beloved family, to the people of Indiana, and fellow Americans: I begin this journey today to be here for you. We love our country. We love what it represents. And today, I ask you to join with me, to believe in a new wave of fundamental changes that we are getting ready to crest as we look towards a bright future. These are changes that will be the answer to many questions that you ask of the lives you lead: why we fight, why there is war, and why we bother with the petty details of life. In the days to come, these momentous changes are going to come to light."_

The sight of the enraptured faces was almost too much to bear; Kinsey's supporters had gobbled the soaring rhetoric of his speech, oblivious to just what lay within the subtext. Blindly, Jack reached for the remote, stilling when a gentle hand stayed him.

"Just a little while more," Sam told him softly.

_"My fellow Americans, we are approaching what could be the most important election of our lifetime. Elections are about choices. And choices are about values. In the end it's not just policies and programs that matter. The stakes are high. The president who sits at that desk must be guided by principle…"_

Jack's groan was loud in the living room as he ran a hand through his hair. "God, he's excruciating."

"I know. It's hard to believe this is happening."

_"With your help, I will take my own values of faith and family to the Presidency – to build an America that is not only better off, but better. And that is why today, I announce that I am a candidate for President of the United States. If you believe America must move forward, then let us not waste any more time. Let us do begin this journey together. And together, we can reach for the dream. The hope is there, just over the horizon. So I invite you to come with me toward this new horizon where no one is left behind. I can promise you this future. I promise you, our best days are still to come. I promise. Watch for it in the days to come. God bless you and God bless the United States of America."_

Raucous cheers followed the end of Kinsey's speech, a striking contrast to the rising tension in the living room.

The television flicked off at a sudden push of a button, casting the room in darkness. Jack blinked once in surprise, taking a second to adjust to the change, then realised that she'd extricated the remote from his hand.

A second later, he heard Sam speak quietly. "You're right. We've seen enough. It's worse than I-"

The harsh ring of his cell phone made the both of them turn sharply towards the sound. Jack gave her a wary glance, then moved to take the call.

"O'Neill," he snapped, his eyes narrowing when he heard the caller's voice. "Be right there, Sir."

He swore under his breath and turned to face her questioning look. "That was Hammond. Says there's something important that's just come up. We've got to go back."

* * *

**SGC  
Colorado Springs  
May 21, 2001**

There was no obvious demarcation between night and day in the secret facility deep underground, so the base personnel tended towards a work pattern that began in the early hours of the morning and ended way into the night. The clock blinked 0235 hrs in luminous green and still the corridors seemed to be a hive of activity by the time SG-1 made their way to the briefing room. Hammond came barrelling out of his office soon after they took their seats, the set lines on his face an ominous portent of his revelation.

"I trust that you have watched or at least heard of Senator Kinsey's announcement of his candidacy earlier tonight," he began without preamble and threw a couple of folders down onto the table as he saw their nods. "Unfortunately, that is not the only piece of news that you will be receiving. Earlier I made a few phone calls and found that all lines to the President were blocked."

"What's really going on, Sir?"

Hammond watched O'Neill close his eyes briefly as though in pain. "Are you alright, son?"

"Fine, Sir." But the Colonel's quick nod and his equally quick deflection of the question suggested that it wasn't. "So what are we up for?"

Hammond paused, examining O'Neill's slight pallor with a frown before regarding the rest of the members of his flagship team. "That's what I wanted to find out too. And as it turns out, they were busy for a reason. A half hour earlier, I received news that the Stargate Program will be formally disclosed in two days. The President's office is already preparing a statement for this event."

"Sir, with due respect, this is completely insane t-"

"General, what ab-"

"My hands are tied, people," Hammond interrupted firmly. "I couldn't even talk to the President, let alone warn him about the Aschen. All I received was an order from the Oval Office stating that the SGC will be officially decommissioned and cease to exist as a branch of the military in about seventy-two hours. All personnel will, in due time, be given the option of reassignment or retirement," he paused regretfully before continuing, "and the Stargate will be transported to its permanent home at the J.R. Reed Space Terminal in D.C."

The shock that rippled through the briefing room was almost a tangible thing, punctured only by a small, intake of breath from Sam.

"It's all going too fast," she said. "It can't be a coincidence that Kinsey announced his candidacy at the same time."

"No it isn't," O'Neill put in. "Kinsey must have been talking about the disclosure in his acceptance speech."

"There has to be something we can do," Daniel insisted. "We could, you know, push for an audience with the President-"

Sam shook her head, not missing the glint in his eyes. "If the General couldn't even-"

But Daniel didn't let her finish. "I meant pushing for an audience with the President…through unconventional means."

The archaeologist's suggestion was met with sharp uneasy glances in a wordless, conspiratorial exchange that Hammond sought immediately to quell before it took on a life of its own.

"Dr. Jackson, it was never really in our hands the moment the Earth-Aschen alliance negotiations began," Hammond pointed out.

"Indeed, Daniel Jackson. Any attempt to dissuade by force will be more harmful than beneficial."

"Sir, we all know who's behind this," Sam put in.

"We do," Hammond agreed, "but we are left with no other option but to prepare for the disclosure ceremony that will take place after the official move of the Stargate to Washington in two days. As official representatives of the recently-defunct SGC, you are expected to be in the audience for the ceremony. Members of other SG teams will be given privileged entry to the ceremony and to the press conferences if they wish to attend. Personally, I am sorry to hear that all of our teams' contributions to this day aren't recognised."

"Oh, you know me, Sir. I just love the glitz and glamour."

Hammond would have laughed at the disbelieving stares they levelled at O'Neill if it hadn't been for the gravity of the situation. "As of now, Colonel O'Neill, I am placing the SGC in your capable hands. You are to be in charge of the facility until it is officially decommissioned."

A single, quiet word from Jack pierced the thick, pervasive tension, full of intended meaning. "Sir?"

"I have my orders to get to Washington in about five hours."

"To meet the President?"

"I hope so, people. It may be our only chance."

"You mean you don't know, Sir?"

"It was a call from the Joint Chiefs."

But O'Neill was already shaking his head. "I can't be the only one getting a bad feeling about this."

Hammond silently agreed with the Colonel's assessment. But things had been spiralling out of control from the day the negotiations moved up to state level and acting as though they had any measure of control over the larger events that took place beyond their reach was, in reality, delusional. Yet the innate inability of SG-1 to let things go had been key to many life-changing events. Perhaps, he thought, there was still hope that this team would find a way despite their circumstances.

"I assure you, Jack, that the turn of events has been more than surprising. And even less welcome. But this is how things are going down. On the day of disclosure in Washington, there will be a live broadcast of the President's statement, the introduction of the Stargate, the SGC, and finally, the Aschen. There will be a time of questions and answers which the public relations teams will handle thereafter. As of now, all SG units have already been recalled, and all personnel will need to be accounted for in the next ten hours before the SGC is shut down for good."

"What is expected of us immediately after the disclosure ceremony?" Daniel asked.

"This will be followed by two or three weeks of downtime in order to facilitate all necessary transitions. What happens after your period of downtime however, is beyond my knowledge." Hammond held each of their eyes before he addressed O'Neill. "You have your orders, Jack."

"Sir-"

Hammond didn't wait to hear their acknowledgement or their protests. "Before I end this meeting, which I believe will officially be our last, I'd like to say, it's been an honour. All of you. Whatever happens, you may be assured of a stellar reference from me and from the President."

Then he stood up and executed a sharp salute, seeing the military half of SG-1 snap immediately to attention and the other half rise slowly to their feet.

"It's been an honour-" Sam began. But the words were barely out of her mouth when the Colonel suddenly collapsed.


	16. Disclosure

_A/N: Just 4 more chapters to go. Thanks for reading, despite the rather depressing storyline._

* * *

**Chapter 16 - Disclosure**

**SGC  
Colorado Springs  
May 21, 2001**

"How is he?"

She should have known that her friend wouldn't have returned home to get a few hours of much-needed sleep, despite her orders. Janet pursed her lips in frustration and sighed, moving away from her computer console where she was studying some readouts to join Sam next to the Colonel's bed.

"He's running a temperature. But he's sedated and resting."

"What's really going on, Janet?"

"An honest answer, Sam, would be that I don't exactly know," she replied dryly, gesturing in the direction of the Colonel. "I seem to be saying a lot of that lately, but there's very little we know about Aschen medical technology. What seems to be happening is that Colonel O'Neill's body is reacting to the drugs that the Aschen had used on him."

The doctor's revelation was a weight in Sam's stomach. "But how could…I thought Kynal had helped to reverse the process?"

"I thought that too. Initial scans and blood work showed absolutely no signs of internal breakdown. Well, until now," Janet admitted, "Whatever Kynal gave him turned out only to be a suppressant of the symptoms of a severely compromised immune system. The constant fatigue is just one of the signs of what I think is autoimmune disorder. He's suffering from systemic inflammation, a condition that results in the body attacking its own tissues. And it's at a far more advanced stage than I thought. I've given him a cortisone shot for relief but his blood work is showing many abnormal test results, like low white blood cell and platelet counts, high levels of auto-antibodies of all types and immunoglobulins." She hesitated, then spoke in a much lower tone knowing it might possibly call for a revelation that would be inopportune. "Did you…"

"Janet?"

"Did you notice anything wrong with the Colonel in the past few days or weeks? Off-base?"

If the hesitation that followed was enough of a hint, Sam's next words confirmed that Janet had suspected all along. "He's been complaining of headaches. But I never noticed that he was more exhausted than usual. Janet, how could I not-"

Janet's dark eyes softened at her friend's obvious distress. "You couldn't have known, Sam."

"I should have noticed, Janet. We had been so caught up in each other that-" She shook her head in denial and sighed, reeling her wayward thoughts back in. "How bad is he, really?"

"If I were to treat him under the assumption that he's suffering from an autoimmune disease, we've got to bring his immune markers down. Zinc, vitamin D, probiotics are just a few things we could do. There is also the possibility that multiple sclerosis could have set in if there is nerve damage in his body," Janet said sombrely. "There will always be the risk of further complications, Sam, seeing as we're dealing with an unknown cause."

"God." She slumped in her seat, fighting the sob back down her throat, blinking rapidly back the heat that signalled oncoming tears.

"I'm sorry, Sam. For now, though, it does look like he would be able to function normally. With some help from all of you. He'll be on his feet in a day or two. What I don't know is how quickly he'll deteriorate, or for that matter, how quickly he'll recover. He might be dealing with these effects permanently and managing it, or this could kill him," Janet said honestly. "It's probably not what you want to hear, but that's all we have for now."

"Is there more that I can do? Try once more to contact the Tok'ra? The Asgard? Will they even respond to the call within this time period before the gate goes public, seeing as they've been silent the past few months?"

The desperation that tinged her friend's voice was difficult to hear. "Sam, I think the best thing you can do now is take care of yourself. Think carefully about what you're going to do after the disclosure."

"Believe me, I haven't stopped," she replied wryly, looking at the man on the bed who had unwittingly taught her to rethink all that she'd held sacred before. For a long time, he had been the representation of an elusive, unattainable future, a fleeting dream that had somehow turned into a wondrous reality. But mounting fear was quickly replacing the initial days of quiet euphoria, when all that had been so full of promise was now sullied by unexpected circumstances.

Janet's soft voice halted her racing thoughts. "Have you thought about what assignment you want after this?"

Sam dropped her head slightly. Hammond had promised all of them a reassignment of their choice. He'd spoken to her briefly just before he left, reassuring her that she'd be given a civilian scientist position in research facilities or in the Academy should she wish it. But for once, it was not impossible to think beyond work, duties and reassignments.

"You know, the Stargate has been an overwhelming part of my life the past few years that I can't remember what it's like to work apart from it," she confessed, then continued with a deep breath. "But things have changed, Janet. There's something else I want now."

"I know," the doctor said simply and looked around at the familiar surroundings that she'd come to love over the past four years. "I can't believe that this is all going to change just like that."

A slight smile crossed her face. "Change is not all bad, Janet."

"No, it isn't. I've been meaning to tell you. I'm going into private practice in the Springs," Janet finally said. "I'm hoping it'll give Cassie a bit more stability."

Sam already felt the loss keenly, a reminder of the days of childhood when she left good friends behind as her father moved from assignment to assignment. Yet, as each transitory phase gradually got less painful to bear, it still hadn't made saying goodbyes any easier.

"It's a good move, Janet," she ventured tentatively. "Cassie needs the stability and a mother who's there for her. For what it's worth, you're probably making the right decision."

A quizzical look crossed Janet's face at the cautiousness that had bled through her reply. "Thanks. But?"

Sam contemplated her next few words carefully. "Have you considered that the medical facilities might be one of the first few institutions to fall under Aschen control? Or that you would later be part of the vaccination procedures?"

"It wasn't an easy decision," Janet sighed. "There's more than just a possibility that our medical centres would not only be the distribution centres of the Aschen vaccines, but also utilise medical Aschen technology. From there, it's a matter of time before local, private practices are stocked with the vaccines. Can I live with that, knowing what's in those vaccines? No. Will I administer it? No. But we're not at that point yet and right now, I just can't see ahead beyond the closure of the SGC."

"Janet, if anything, no one's blaming you for prioritising Cassie. When do you leave?"

"I leave the day SG-1 leaves for Washington. I'll miss you. Very much. But you'll know where to find me."

The two women sat in contemplative silence until Janet got up. "I have my readouts to finish, Sam," she said apologetically and gently gestured to the sleeping Colonel. "He's going to need you when he wakes. I'll leave you all the instructions that you will need."

Sam nodded wordlessly in reply and settled in for the long wait, absently listening to the click of Janet's low heels across the hard ground. But the rustle of sheets in the next second indicated that Jack had shifted and blinked awake, the initial confusion in his eyes melting into knowing resignation as he took in the familiar surroundings of the infirmary. Unconsciously, she stood and moved nearer to his bedside, mindful even then, of the respectable distance she would have normally kept between them on base.

"Sir?"

His heavy-lidded eyes took in her tired frame, his speech considerably slower than usual. "Carter?"

"How are you feeling?"

"Like I've been run over by my own truck," he mumbled.

She couldn't help the small quirk of her lips. "Janet says-"

He interrupted her quietly. "Just tell me how bad."

Instantly, she knew what he was asking. He'd known. Or at least suspected something. What was she to say to a man who probably expected the worst? That his headaches hadn't been of the simple, garden-variety kind? That he was on a one-way ticket to the worst kind of oblivion?

"I don't know, Sir," she told him honestly, "But I'm hoping it's not. We need you."

Jack knew what she meant without her needing to ever say things out loud. A smile that could have been a grimace crossed his face as he squeezed his eyes shut against an unfamiliar sting that he knew was just _dust_. "Yeah," he replied sleepily. "Need something, Carter."

"What is it?"

"Need to speak to President," he told her in bits and pieces as he fought to hold onto the wave of tiredness that threatened to engulf him in blessed rest.

"General Hammond's going to try again. Sir, he's not going to stop until he gets something done."

"I know. But just in case."

Sam paused, wondering if it was the medication talking. "What do you mean?"

Just gathering his thoughts took much effort. "Get the architectural blueprints of the terminal," Jack said slowly, "Find out what you can about security on disclosure day. Hammond might need us as backup."

Then she realised exactly what he was trying to say. It was as Daniel had suggested; they needed a way to get to the President themselves, needed to work on the assumption that Hammond would fail.

He quirked his lips slightly when he saw her brief hesitation followed by a quick nod. "I'll do my best, Sir."

His eyes closed in relief. "Talk again when I wake, Carter."

She took a quick glance around and seeing no one in the infirmary, moved her hand under his briefly, gratified to feel a quick, answering squeeze as he sank into a deep sleep. "Rest, Jack. I'll be here when you wake."

* * *

**The Oval Office  
Washington D.C.  
May 22, 2001**

The Commander-in-Chief looked up when the door clicked open, a slight smile passing his lips when he saw who his visitor was.

"General George Hammond."

Their hands met in a firm shake.

"President Thornton. Good to see you, Sir."

"Likewise, General. I heard from my aides that you were trying to reach me. But after getting the statement of the pending disclosure ceremony, you can imagine why. So when you received your orders from the Joint Chiefs to report to Washington, I insisted that you came here directly."

The relief that Hammond felt was palpable, seeing the solution to his earlier attempts to reach Thornton suddenly present itself. "Thank you, Sir. Now I would lik-"

In moments, Thornton had crossed from his desk to a place on a couch where a decanter stood, already open. "Come on, George. We've known each other a while now. Let's take a seat. A drink for you?"

"No thank you, Sir. In fact, I'd-"

Golden liquid trickled into the glass. "Nothing that can't wait for a drink, eh, George?"

Thornton's strange nonchalance bothered Hammond. Usually, the Commander-in-Chief was anything but lackadaisical; his firm support of the SGC from its infancy had only been unwavering, undermined only by Kinsey's shenanigans. Hammond cast a discreet, critical look at Thornton, seeing the man look as though he hadn't had enough sleep in days.

He wasn't sure he liked what he saw. He liked the implications of it even less. Hammond tried again. "In fact, Mr President, there is an urgent matter of-"

Thornton cleared his throat pointedly, barely-contained excitement in his eyes, his hand already up to halt Hammond mid-sentence. "General, how would you feel about taking up a position within a newly-formed Governmental department? It is going to be a true international platform of military and ex-military advisors who will work with the Aschen in securing Earth's stellar boundaries."

"Actually, Mr. President, I'm here to talk about security issues that we're facing with the Aschen."

"The Aschen, make no mistake, are our friends," Thornton insisted with a lopsided smile. "I'm offering you a job, George. Do you want it?"

Hammond placed a dossier of SG-1's reports on the table before addressing his commanding officer, using the brief pause in the conversation to rein in his temper. "With all due respect, Sir, there are more important things right now than this job you are offering me. In this dossier, you will learn that the Aschen's vaccines aren't what you think they are. They cause sterility and I have the medical reports here to show you the conclusive proof. In fact, there is sufficient evidence that the worlds in the Confederation had been colonised by force. Even the bio-weapon that they are presumably-"

Thornton was staring at him like he'd lost his head. A bubble of disbelieving laughter escaped from his chest; it bloomed into a loud guffaw that lasted seconds, drowning out Hammond's last words.

"George," he drawled in mock amazement, "You've an active imagination for a General. Should have become an author instead. Your books will sell."

There was no crisis, at least not in Thornton's mind. It had never existed, Hammond thought with a sinking feeling. "It is a serious matter, Sir."

The smirk had dropped from Thornton's face, the amicable front disappearing as quickly as it'd appeared. "I think I've heard enough, General. If this is your poor attempt to discredit my ability in leading the country to greatness, no one, not even you will stop me. Not even Kinsey, that snivelling bastard who wants my job. I've got word for you, George. Your beloved SGC isn't the government."

Stunned into brief silence by Thornton's defensive snarl, Hammond knew more certainly now that the man wasn't acting himself. Not by a long shot. And he'd bet that it all had something to do with the Aschen. But the irrational…_madness_ that tinged the President's usual calm lucidity was sufficient warning for him to back down and rethink his options.

"If you do know what we have been doing, Sir," he tried again calmly, "You would understand our motives for doing what we do."

"You don't know how wrong you are, _George_." A full grin pulled Thornton's cheeks upwards in a parody of good humour.

Hammond risked another quick, careful look around. The curtains had been drawn shut, a firm warning to trespassing intruders. There was a distinct lack of harried aides who hung around the corridors and a conspicuous absence of the President's security detail in a place that was supposed to be the most heavily-guarded section of the White House.

Everything about the place and the situation made no sense. Why was Thornton alone? Was the deranged behaviour he exhibited simply a consequence of drunkenness? Or was he also a victim of Aschen experimentation and mind control?

Hammond frowned, knowing he needed a different tack. A sharp rap on the door interrupted his next sentence.

"Mr President?" The strawberry-blond head of an aide poked cautiously around the door.

Thornton looked up in relief. "Karen! Just the person I was waiting to see."

"Sorry to interrupt, Sir."

Thornton stood, forcing Hammond to his feet. "Not at all. We're done here. Please see to it that General Hammond is escorted out and taken care of."

"Of course, Mr President."

Taking another sip from his glass, Thornton gestured to the dossier and shrugged. "I'll have a look, General."

Hammond felt no reassurance as he buttoned the jacket of his dress blues and hoisted his briefcase. He was being summarily dismissed and he knew it. "Thank you, Sir."

* * *

**SGC  
Colorado Springs  
May 23, 2001**

Jack blinked awake at the soft knock on the door of his private quarters and took a moment to reorientate himself. He sat up slowly, looking at his rumpled BDUs in slight dismay and grimaced.

The door clicked open to reveal a backlit figure that stood uncertainly at the doorway.

"Sir?"

Was it strange to feel lighter just to hear the sound of her voice? He shook the last vestiges of sleep from his head and tried to refocus. "Yeah, Carter."

She took a step into the room, a smile on her face despite the tired lines around her eyes that were starting to show. Even then, he thought her beautiful and immediately knew he had it bad.

"How're you feeling?"

He shrugged on his jacket and adjusted the lapels before answering. "Never better," he said, eyeing her closely. "Carter, when was the last time you slept?"

Even in the dim light, he saw her flush. "I…I don't remember. There's so much to do."

Jack thought of the extensive packing that had started in earnest the day Hammond left and the sheer cartloads of paperwork that accompanied each crate. He sighed in commiseration. "Yeah, don't I know that."

"Anyway, Sir, I was just asking if you wanted dinner."

"The last supper in the Mess," he said in realisation. "I'm going to miss the cake. And the red jello."

Sam worked a passable smile at his weak attempt at a joke as they fell into step in the corridor, their easy manner subdued by the mournful atmosphere that seemed to have permanently descended upon the four walls of the SGC. Most of the personnel had left earlier in the day, leaving merely shadows where they once stood, worked and lived. It felt different, she thought. Different from the typical reassignments that she'd received throughout the years and something more akin to deep loss. "I'd never thought I'd be saying this, but me too."

"Have you heard from Hammond yet?"

The sudden urgency that laced his voice made her blink. "No, Sir."

"Now that's worrying."

She thought about it for a moment and agreed. "Yeah, it's unlike the General not to be in contact."

Something in her words made him stop short, the abrupt movement causing her to walk a few steps past him. "Contact," he repeated softly.

"What?" Her confusion was obvious.

"Carter, there's something I need to check before we eat. Let's make a detour to the server rooms. I need to do this before all systems go offline. I'll need two access codes and I think you've got the other one."

"Sir?"

"The security systems here are set up in order to permit the transmission of encrypted digital messages through shared passwords within linked networks. Right, Carter?"

For once, he didn't bother to hide his knowledge of the base layout and of the computer systems, grinning at the expression of mild shock that appeared on her face.

It wasn't easy schooling her expression back into a neutral one as they strode towards the elevator. "Yes, Sir. The secure network, the shared passkeys and the encryption make it near impossible to trace the source of the message. What are you looking for?"

"Something that Hammond would only use in an emergency."

It was quiet at sub-level twenty when the elevator doors opened. Jack punched in the access code to the room and waited for Sam to enter hers.

The loud whirr of the processors greeted them as he pulled open the door.

"Get me on the messaging interface."

She followed him into the darkened room, already heading for the main computer console hidden within a large frame that lined one wall. A few seconds later, the screen lit with blinking cipher codes.

"Sir, your codes are needed again." She tilted the keyboard towards him and saw him move to type. In the darkness, the illuminated screen lit his face a ghostly white.

He glanced at her. "Done."

"Loading the interface, determining the encrypted symmetric key and algorithm…got it."

White scrolling lines sped across the black background, coming to a halt as a mess of gibberish. The nondescript notice would be nestled within the command prompts, if he recalled right. Keying in a search parameter, Jack finally managed to pull up the short message.

_/-_

_Jack, _

_When you get this, know that I won't be around to help you anymore. Find a way. The President has stopped listening to reason. I pray you succeed where I have failed. A safe house has been prepared should you need it. 44.9969° N, 72.6740° W. _

_Do what it takes. For the last time, godspeed._

_- H_

_/ End Main /-_

Making sure that what he read wasn't a figment of his imagination, Jack blinked twice and re-read the message, a frown starting to carve deep grooves in his face.

What the hell was going on? And did that mean Hammond was…?

Sam's expression turned into one of concern when she saw the tension in his shoulders and the lines in his face.

"Sir?"

Wordlessly, he moved aside, letting her read Hammond's note and seeing the slump of her shoulders as understanding dawned in her wide eyes that were starting to get glassy with unshed tears. Instinctively, he put a soft hand around her shoulder and drew her closer, feeling the slight tremble of her tight muscles as she fought the tide of emotion and the blood that pounded in her ears.

"Carter," he murmured against the sensitive skin of her neck, "we'll get through this. C'mon, we need to get Teal'c and Daniel."

He saw her nod and with no small swell of pride, witnessed the small but rare moment of seeing Carter pull herself together.

"Initiate the shut-down sequence. Delete the message securely."

"Yes, Sir."

"Get Daniel and Teal'c to Hammond's office," he told her grimly. "Looks like we're in trouble."

* * *

The brief stab of nostalgia was familiar, but not unexpected, the empty gate room being merely one of the many cascading changes the past few days. Suddenly, Daniel was more than grateful for stalwart Jaffa's presence at his side.

"Looks funny, isn't it? I've grown so used to seeing the Stargate through this window that I've never anticipated a time when it's not there."

"Indeed. I too, have never witnessed the control room devoid of people."

A furrowed brow met that statement. "Teal'c, I've been meaning to ask. Why didn't you return home to the Jaffa?" Daniel motioned to the gate room below. "It's not as though we're in a very good place right now."

"I pledged my loyalty to the SGC and to O'Neill on the day that I rejected false gods, Daniel Jackson. The Aschen are but another enemy of the Tau'ri, another blight in the galaxy."

The sound of soft voices and approaching footsteps halted the conversation. A moment later, the military half of the team appeared at the top of the stairs.

"Hammond sent a message through a channel that's only reserved for dire emergencies. We've to assume the worst," Jack informed them bluntly.

"This is most unfortunate news, O'Neill."

Daniel tilting his head slightly to meet Sam's slightly red eyes then shifted his gaze to the rest of the team. "What? How?"

"I don't know. Can't have been very long after he left for D.C."

He listened to Jack tersely relaying Hammond's last warning, feeling the hollow sense of loss at the news as his heart rate doubled in speed.

"The Colonel accessed General Hammond's encrypted message through a seldom-used digital channel," Sam quietly clarified. "He probably wrote it in a rush and he wouldn't have sent that unless…" Her sentence was left incomplete as she pursed her lips in an effort to lock away her emotions.

"What do you think happened?"

"It could be anything," Sam speculated. "Political play or maybe something more sinister like mind-control techniques. It's not impossible, Daniel. How did the Volians or the Keltians not remember anything of their civilisations?"

The feeling of powerlessness was foreign. "I can't believe there's nothing we can do."

Sam took up a folder containing the architectural blueprints of the space terminal and the security set-up, leafing through them absently. "Colonel O'Neill and I talked about it briefly. We thought of a plan to get the President to see for himself what the Aschen are really doing during the inauguration ceremony should General Hammond not get an audience with him."

"But?"

"Hammond brought our reports to the White House for the President's perusal," Sam told Daniel pointedly. "If we assume that the Aschen are slowly gaining ground in the government and that the President is no longer the one pulling the strings, then it's also safe to assume that we, having made those discoveries, are as much a threat to them."

"Yep. We're next in line, Danny boy," Jack said tersely, "Obviously the damn ceremony's out of the question now. If the man at the top's a puppet, I sure as hell wouldn't trust anyone else. Something being rotten in the state of Washington and all."

"We have no one watching out sixes anymore. That's also what General Hammond anticipated in providing the coordinates of a safe house," Sam added.

A hard look crossed Jack's face. "Then we have no time to lose because they'll be coming for us. I'm sorry to say this, but even our houses could be compromised by now. We need to head to the safe house as soon as you can pack everything you need from here."

There was something inevitable about it all, Daniel thought as he looked at Jack. Something uncontrollable about the series of changes snowballing in the past few months that began with an all-too innocent reconnaissance visit to P4C-970.

Just how did things turn out this way?

He'd spent the past week mulling over that single question and still came up with nothing but imagined scenarios where he could have been wiser, more discerning, more suspicious.

If only he'd been…everything he'd not been in the past few months.

If only the ability to turn back the clock lay in his hands.

Daniel sighed. The time for regrets wasn't now. Instead, he simply nodded in acceptance of the next best course of action. "Let's get to it."


	17. Plans

**Chapter 17 - Plans**

**Location unknown  
Canadian Border  
May 23-24, 2001**

They crossed the big expanse of land as quickly as they could and drove until the deep orange sun gave way to a dark, velvet sky. The patches of forest went past in a blur, its inhabitants blissfully oblivious to the broadcast of the news that shook the world.

In the dawning light of a new morning, two cars carrying the four members of the former SG-1 moved away from the last junction of the northern town. With each mile covered, the landscape grew sparser and thinner, the tiny towns dotting the sides of the interstate highways gradually disappearing into the horizon.

At exactly 1000 hours, Jack pushed a button on the car radio, letting a familiar voice come through.

_"Our story begins in 1928, in Giza, Egypt. Archaeologist Professor Paul Langford made a discovery that would later be a significant step in understanding the universe around us. The artefact that he found was a perfect circle, 21 feet in diameter and weighing thirty-two tons. Its construction was peculiar, its patterns too dissimilar to the typical motifs of Ancient Egyptian objects that had been discovered around it."_

It was as eloquent a revelation as it could be, but even that was too inadequate a bolster for the waves of shock and outcry that were to come, Sam thought distantly. Instinctively she moved to reach for Jack's hand, taking some comfort in the slight squeeze that he returned. She looked at him, seeing the lines etched deeply in his rugged face. He was tired; they all were.

In the wake of Hammond's last message, they'd raided the last of the weapons and technology cache and left in the cover of darkness in nondescript military-issue cars, then ditched them for workshop spares that allowed them to leave as little of a trail as possible.

The day of reckoning had come too soon. They were left without a Plan B, and now, found themselves bereft of their jobs and most of their possessions, losing nearly everything in the last twenty-four hours.

This farce of a reality had always been a possibility, but she suspected that neither of them has had the time to come to terms with it yet.

Sam lay back and shut her eyes, willing the unceasing thoughts to go away, finally falling into an uneasy doze after inching closer to Jack.

Just thirty miles to go.

* * *

_"Today is a momentous day for us. But to fully understand its significance, we must begin with a story. What you see in front of you is a device we call the Stargate. The Stargate cannot function on its own; rather, it is part of a network of Stargates placed across the Milky Way galaxy so that interstellar travellers can cross vast distances in a matter of microseconds. Over the past five years, the United States Air Force has been running a highly classified program under Cheyenne Mountain that sent elite teams on numerous exploration missions to other planets. The teams had a simple mission: to perform reconnaissance, determine threats and if possible, to make peaceful contact with the peoples of the worlds they visited. No one knew of their existence except for me and the Joint Chiefs, and to protect their privacy, no one will know who they are now. But above all, we must now credit SG-1, the top-secret flagship team of Stargate Command for making first contact with a very powerful ally, the Aschen. And what can we say about our new friends? They are an amazing race, advanced and long-lived, with whom we have the privilege of introducing to you today."_

In the other car, Daniel kept an absent eye on the wheel as each carefully-phrased sentence was read out, feeling the tightness in his chest lift at the sight of the Jaffa seated calmly next to him. Briefly, he let his mind wander to Janet and then to Hammond, both of whom were gone too quickly.

But by some miracle, SG-1 was still here. His friends were still here. Jack and Sam were happy. And together.

These were the little things of which he reminded himself every hour. For now, he could at peace with this.

* * *

She kept her hand in his as he took the car through the last few miles, the gentle wind lifting the strands of her golden hair as she slept with her head tilted slightly towards the window.

The car rolled to a stop and a gentle hand on her shoulder roused her from her uneasy sleep. "Hey, we're here."

Drowsily, she unbuckled herself and tried not to stumble onto the hard ground as she climbed out of the car, her eyes already tracing the façade of the small building nestled in the woods at the edge of the northernmost town of Vermont.

"Think you could do this, Carter?" Jack asked her quietly as they stopped at the threshold.

She's had worse. The filth of the Goa'uld prisons…the heart-stopping moments with the Replicators…the cruel torture of an Ash'rak after the forceful blending with Jolinar of Malkshur.

The list went on. In contrast, a safehouse long fallen into disrepair, was better than what she could have had hoped for.

"Yeah." The firmness in her voice brooked no argument. "Let's go in."

Daniel and Teal'c were already inside, their footprints heavy and loud on the hardwood floors as they brought in their belongings and supplies.

Briefly, she turned to him, giving into the impulse to hug his solid form. The newly created path to destruction on which the world had just started had also razed what officially once stood between them; now there was nothing to hide, nothing more that would hold them back any longer.

This was their life now.

Finally, she broke off the contact, but not before taking his hand in hers as they walked through the door.

* * *

**Canadian Border  
May 30, 2001**

The first rays of dawn peeked through the partially-shut blinds that shielded their presence to the outside world, the hushed silence of the new day abruptly shattered by the sound of the harsh grind of the coffee maker down the corridor.

Jack was last to the dining table, his presence suddenly halting the hushed voices that sounded like a whispering rush of wind through the autumn leaves.

They weren't meeting his eyes.

"What?" He demanded without preamble.

Daniel shoved the morning paper at him. "This."

He grabbed it without a word and sank into an empty chair when the bold words of the obituary jumped out at him.

**_General in charge of top-secret facility found dead_**

_USAF Major General George Alistair Hammond, 62, of Texas, died on Tuesday night of complications from a sudden heart attack. Before fronting the now-defunct Stargate Command, General Hammond had held the position of Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Plans and Requirements in Washington D.C.._

_He will be fondly remembered by all and is survived by his beloved daughter Lilly Florence and his granddaughters Kayla and Tessa._

_George A. Hammond, born June 3, 1939, died May 29, 2001._

The loud thud of the papers being slammed down hard on the table echoed throughout the four walls of the small kitchen.

"This is bullshit," Jack swore harshly. "It's no coincidence."

"No, it's not."

"I do not believe that a grave illness had afflicted General Hammond."

A small, comforting hand on his knee under the table calmed him down somewhat. "You and me both, Teal'c."

"I still can't believe he's gone," Sam said, exhaling heavily. "But it's proof enough that the Aschen know about what we've done."

"And wouldn't stand for anyone in their way," Daniel reaffirmed quietly.

So their desperate flight to the safehouse had been the right decision, Jack thought, the obituary quelling all his previous doubts that had surfaced of herding everyone straight from base and into hiding.

But truthfully, it hadn't been as cataclysmic a shift as he'd thought it would be. The four of them had fallen into the routine of a typical off-world setup upon arriving, only later discovering a far more advanced technological and logistical arrangement in the well-equipped basement. Even in the last moments, it had been Hammond's quick thinking and impeccable foresight that had seen them through.

Daniel interrupted the short moment of rumination, as he grabbed the papers, quickly flipping to another page. "There's something else, Jack. The Aschen vaccine is being rolled out worldwide as mass vaccinations campaigns."

Jack's head snapped up, a mix of disbelief and horror crossing his face. "What?"

"According to the report, all the governments on Earth voted in favour of it. The vaccine is scheduled to be deployed in two weeks in a worldwide exercise that will require a month to complete. Apparently, the Aschen have also devised an efficient delivery system involving the mobilisation of local clinics and hospitals."

_Hell_.

"We can't sit here and do nothing," Daniel quietly continued.

Sam nodded slowly. "I think you're right about that."

"Indeed."

"But not immediately," Jack countered, causing three pairs of eyes to snap to him in disbelief. A quirk of his lips told them that he didn't fail to see the irony of urging caution just as Daniel pushed for a plan in a parody of role-reversal. But the need to grief still outweighed the impulse for immediate action, the former having been a constant companion in his life long enough for him to know that they needed a temporary timeout. "Soon. But not now. We'll talk about this later, Daniel."

* * *

Jack found Sam sitting on the bed staring at her hands much later, deeply lost in thought. He knew that she had disappeared quietly after breakfast, the need for escape overwhelming after learning of the tragic end of their CO.

The door shut with a quiet click and he sank down next to her.

Wordlessly, she crept up to him, needing the tactile comfort of touch and reassurance in a world gone mad. Then shared grief turned into painful want and into a frantic coupling on the covers of the neatly-made bed that they shared in the safehouse, uncaring of the raw cries of passion they made as she mindlessly moved to take him deep in her.

Only when her bare skin was slick with sweat and her heart slow its pounding did she allow herself the private luxury of cleansing tears. It seemed selfish now that they had each other as the road to ruin lay before them, yet it wasn't something she could bring herself to feel guilty about. Despite the state of affairs, they'd put themselves out there so much that it was a wonder that the four of them – that _he_ – was still around. This, she thought, was just their personal payback. Even though it felt more like an ending than a new beginning for them all.

The tears eventually dried and Sam sat up, gently disentangling herself from his arms and looked around for her hastily discarded clothes.

"Where're you going?" He asked softly, sleepily.

She paused in the middle of shrugging on a thin sweater, her mind going back to the digital parameters of a program that she'd written long before the Stargate had consumed her life. "To look for the Aschen vaccine production and storage plant."

Instantly he knew what she was thinking. "I'll come with you."

She shook her head, knowing what she had to do. "I might be up all night and you'll need your rest."

He waved away her barely-veiled anxiety and sat up to pull on his pants. "I'm fine. Get Daniel and Teal'c. We need to work on a plan."

* * *

**Washington, D.C.  
June 2, 2001**

The incessant ringing of the phone stirred him awake. Joe Faxon let out a sleepy moan and rolled over, reaching a hand out to grab the handset.

"Faxon."

The short silence at the other end was unnerving. "Hello?" He snapped irritably again, wondering why he even bothered to pick the damned phone up.

"Hello Joe, it's me."

"Sam?"

The sheer surprise of hearing her voice made him sit up in anxious pleasure. Since the day she'd unwittingly admitted that she was having doubts about them, he'd retreated quietly to give her the space she needed. He hadn't heard from her since and SG-1's conspicuous absence at the inauguration ceremony had only served to compound his nagging suspicion that something had indeed, happened at the recently-decommissioned SGC, Hammond's sudden death notwithstanding.

"Yeah."

Drowsiness and surprise combined to trip his usual eloquence, a strange hope forming in his chest. "What are…I mean, where are you? I really didn't expect to hear from you at this time of night."

Her voice, when she spoke, sounded like it was far away. "Joe, I can't get into that now. But we need your help."

He noted how she'd just made pointed mention that this wasn't a leisure call. In all likelihood, it was untraceable and secure as well. Nonetheless, it piqued his curiosity.

"So, what is it that you need?


	18. Gamble

_A/N: Only 2 more chapters to go. I feel as though I need to apologise a bit for this one._

* * *

**Chapter 18 - Gamble**

**Undisclosed location  
Colorado-New Mexico border  
June 12, 2001**

"Ready?"

She nodded, then realised that Jack couldn't see the action. "Yeah. I'm going in."

"We'll be right behind you."

"Here goes," she muttered to herself and got out of the car, joining the mass of production plant workers who were reporting for their shifts.

Deliberately lengthening her strides, Sam bumped clumsily into a pair of chattering women and carelessly tossed them a bland, monosyllabic apology amid their returning glares.

Pick-pocketing came surprisingly easy after the years of moving in stealth, she thought wryly.

Hanging back a bit, she carefully watched them turn a corner, then slipped into the nearest cleaning storage room and shut the door behind her, hurriedly pulling out a small, hand-held scanner from her pack.

A surreptitious glance told her that eight guards stood at the perimeter, and six more at the inner entrance.

She ran the scanner's green beam across its magnetic strip and code, then spoke quietly into the mouthpiece. "Got it."

It was thirty seconds before she heard an answering voice. "Successful calibration of all entry access cards. You're clear, Sam."

"Thanks, Daniel."

"Teal'c, that's our call. Now." Jack's bark came through loud and clear in her ear.

She pursed her lips in satisfaction. Time to go.

Sam bowed her head low, ruffling her recently-dyed hair once and followed the night-shift workers making their way to the locker rooms. She quietly stashed her bag in an empty locker, then shrugged on a grey jacket over her black shirt with her back towards the buzz of human activity, carefully sorting out the mix of noises in the room.

The low hum of chatter, the clanging of locker doors and the occasional chuckle.

As soon as the uniform was in place, Sam reached inside to pull out several blocks of C4, a small, modified detonator, a zat and an electronic scrambler, stuffing all of the items into the jacket's inner pockets. Satisfied that the bulge wasn't too obvious, she walked into the workers' entrance to the production area, swiping the card that gave her additional access to the clean room partition.

_Susan Joanna Fenwick  
ID: TW20049C_

_**Cleared for entry**_

Two minutes later, she was suited in a metallic-white clean room overall with a transparent mask over her face. Sam heaved a quiet sigh, the enormity of the task ahead weighing heavily on her, feeling a chill that she couldn't seem to shrug off despite the layers of clothing.

With a concerted effort and a minute shake of her head, she refocused.

And saw her opportunity.

Taking advantage of the busier than usual workplace at this particular hour, Sam followed the night-shift workers in, then casually slipped her hand under the snap adjustments at her wrists to retrieve a pocketknife, feeling its comforting weight in her palm.

A quick, tiny slice on both sides of her overall and the pocketknife was back in its original position.

She made her way into the assembly line, deliberately taking a longer route around to a station that looked empty. Turning with her back to the security cameras, she quickly stretched a hand out and reached underneath a hollow surface, a movement practiced numerous times to perfection in the past week.

She repeated the process thrice, slapping on the C4 in several spots, then carefully schooled a look of chagrined forgetfulness on her face. Stopping short as though in annoyance, Sam made a sharp turn as though heading toward the toilets, then abruptly changed her course when she came to the end of the walkway. She picked up her steps after making another quick left turn into a darkened corridor, bypassing the back of the locker room and slipping into a stairwell, quickly drawing her zat as she took the stairs two at a time up to the interstitial space where the utilities rooms were located.

Finally.

"Step one done," she spoke quietly into the microphone.

Jack's soft voice rumbled through the headset. "Good. Next."

"Daniel, do you copy?"

"All clear," he replied, then checked the screen again. "No, wait! Someone's heading for the stairs. Back down, back down!"

Adrenaline made her hit the stairs at twice her normal speed, using the banisters for momentum to help swing herself around the flights of stairs, going down two storeys until she found a small niche into which she could flatten herself without anyone seeing her.

It couldn't have been twenty seconds before Daniel's relieved voice came through again. "They got off a storey above you. Try again."

Sam made it all the way up this time, holding up the scrambler and taking immediate aim at the security cameras that were adjacent to the stairwell. A quick burst of speed brought her to the video surveillance and the control room at the end of the corridor.

"I see it," she spoke into her communication link, then lifted the zat. "Going in."

With a quick inhale, Sam spun from her flattened position against the wall and kicked the door hard, using the element of surprise to discharge the crack of electricity from the zat as soon as she saw the Aschen personnel manning the consoles.

They crumpled to the ground noiselessly and suddenly, the only sounds in her ears were the pounding of the blood and the lingering rings of the electrical discharge from the zat. Hesitating for a fraction of a second, she lifted the zat again and fired another two shots at each prone body, watching as body matter dissolved and disappeared.

All clear.

"I'm in the auxiliary control room," Sam told the rest of the team shakily, unable to hide the relief in her voice while she moved to the security systems that had been modified to suit the Aschen's purposes. She paused, studying the screens, then continued, "from what I see, diverse infrastructures like power supply and communication networks are coupled. I could trigger an iterative cascade of failures in all interdependent networks."

"Good job, Carter." Jack's voice made her lips tilt up minutely.

"Thanks, Sir, but I don't know how long this is going to take." Unconsciously reverting to his rank, she tried to focus on the main console, gritting her teeth in frustration as the alien script scrolled across the screen. "Damn. The Aschen have installed their security protocols into the systems and it'll take time to reboot the systems."

"No pressure, Carter."

The quip from Jack made her snort and relax fractionally. A mass of intertwined wires peeking out behind the centre console caught her eyes.

Here goes, she thought, and pulled the cables and immediately plugged them back in, breathing a sigh of relief when the programming algorithm on a black screen appeared.

Now _that_ she could handle. She hit a button that securely locked the doors and got to work.

"I'm on it," she said with some satisfaction, already keying in the command codes needed to create a bypass. "Now give me ten minutes to reprogram the looping video feed and electronically rewire the access locks."

* * *

Several storeys above Sam, Jack stood on a small alcove of the main biomedical facility, casting a critical eye upwards on the piped utility sources and vent stacks that ran parallel to the ventilation shafts.

He mentally ran through the architectural configuration and the zonal demarcations of the plant, then looked down at the crowd of workers taking their places in the assembly line. The updated blueprints that Sam had somehow managed to procure from a dummy government account – thanks to Faxon – showed that the Aschen had hurriedly modified a biomedical facility for their vaccine-production purposes, choosing to integrate their technological knowledge into the cruder Earth computers. The result was a hybrid of mechanical-electronic systems that were still susceptible to hacking and infiltration, a complacent attempt to override human technology in a temporary setup that had also provided them a chance of success as they planned this raid.

But what they intended to do was still hell of a gamble, Jack admitted to himself. Taking out the vaccine production plant was an ambitious venture that could make or break everything. Yet betting for the odds to be in their favour again was nothing more than a foolish hope that SG-1 would once more deliver and not for the last time, he wondered if today was the day their run of good luck would finally end.

A voice in his earpiece sounded. "Staff changeover complete. Total personnel count for the next five hours on the third to the fifth storey: thirty-two. Teal'c is keeping the escape exit at the rendezvous point clear."

A slight sound in the corridor made Jack slink deeper into the shadows. He waited until it was clear before replying. "Copy that, Daniel. Carter, how's it going?"

Her urgent whispers were punctuated by the frantic tapping of a keyboard. "Video feed modification complete. Sir, you're going to have a total of fifty seconds while the power grids overloads and shuts down as the system reboots itself."

Unconsciously, his hand tightened on his zat. "Got it."

It wasn't long before Carter spoke again. "Sir, triggering cascade failure."

The facility was abruptly plunged into darkness, the eerie glow from the exit signs his only source of illumination.

_All personnel to evacuate. This is not a drill._

It was his cue. In the next second, Jack swung himself up the exterior ledge, using the protruding edges as leverage and topped the balustrade just as the sudden, sharp wail of the evacuation alarm rang through the facility. He got over the barrier and fell into a shaky crouch, wincing as his knees trembled slightly with the force of his landing. He was already breathing heavily, the clawing tiredness making his body scream for rest. But it was an inconvenience he planned on ignoring for a while. Jack looked up at the ledge, then spared a glance at his watch.

Daniel's voice floated into his ears. "Come on, Jack. It's straight up."

He didn't bother to reply.

Twenty-five seconds. He could hear the faint sounds of pounding feet and hushed murmurs from the evacuation process.

_All personnel to evacuate. This is not a drill._

A storey up, two hard left turns, up five metres into the heavily-guarded vaccine storage room.

The stairwell was just in sight. A quick sprint up the flights of stairs, then he emerged in the next wing of the facility.

Jack looked up this time at the ceiling once more, recognising the blue pipelines overhead, punctuated at regular intervals by photocells integrated into a low-voltage lighting control system, lit by the core electrical systems that also stored the vaccine prototype.

He spoke into the headset. "Almost there!"

"Jack, you have fifteen seconds."

"O'Neill, the Aschen have not left the facility."

Shit.

_All personnel to evacuate. This is not a drill._

Jack reached a corner and peeked over, the swung back immediately when he caught sight of grey-clad Aschen guards.

Dammit!

"Yep, they're still here," he growled a warning into his mouthpiece.

A slight change of plans was needed.

"Ten seconds."

Tuning out the archaeologist's words, Jack forced his thoughts to converge on a single point: the thick, wide bullet-proof doors that lay tightly shut behind a line of guards. Keeping a tenuous hold on that image as he reached the last corridor, he spun from the corner and ran, raising his zat, immediately sending the first four guards to the ground.

"Four down. Get me in, Carter."

Three seconds.

"Manual access override. Clear, Sir."

The heavy doors slid noiselessly open and he slipped into the cavernous space just as the power to the facility came back on. The emergency lamps flared to life row by row, gradually revealing the mile-long storage crates were packed high and tight. A second later, the thin red beams that had initially criss-crossed the room disappeared.

He sprinted towards the rows of crates, slamming the blocks of C4 onto them, only to come to a jerking halt when Carter suddenly spoke again with a note of panic in her voice that he didn't like.

"Jack, I'm losing my manual access in auxiliary control. The Aschen are fixing the main systems as I speak and disabling anything other than Aschen administrator access in the controls."

Daniel chose just the wrong time to chime in. "Sam, my feed is breaking up. I can't get a clear signal on both you and Jack. There's too much interference."

"Damn it! Sir, the control room is emitting a jamming frequency while they restart their systems. They're reprogramming the core controls and I can't stop their progress."

A vicious oath escaped Jack's lips at the unexpected and unwelcome development. "How much time do I have, Carter?"

"Three minutes. Max. Before the safe alarm sounds and everyone returns."

_All personnel to eva-_

"Jack!"

Fuck. His first thought was to retreat. To regroup, to redraw their initial plans.

But the speed at which the Aschen were patching the infrastructure failures indicated that any future attempt to return and infiltrate the production facility would mean that they'd be fighting against a significant fortification of all the coupled networks. Aborting the mission at this critical juncture would most likely guarantee that they'd have had lost their only chance to prevent the distribution of the vaccine.

That bit of reasoning was enough to stop him cold.

A buzz in the atmosphere indicated that the air filtration systems were back online. Jack took a quick look around and spotted the red laser beams flicker on and off.

So the systems were back, but still unstable, he thought.

In that split-second, Jack made his decision, pulling out the detonator from his vest.

"See the mission through, folks. Then get your asses to the rendezvous point."

* * *

A drop of sweat trickled down her back as the screens flickered back to life in the Aschen script.

"Shit."

Her time was up and there wasn't any more that she could do. The systems restoration was nearly complete and they'd be caught in kilotons of explosion if they didn't reach the access door that led out of the facility in time.

She yelled into her headset. "We need to get out, now!"

Attaching the explosives underneath the consoles, Sam set the charge and got out of the auxiliary control room, flattening herself against the corner before making a run for the stairwell. Training the zat on the doorway, she slipped in once more and took the stairs down as quickly as her legs took her.

The floodlights came on, bathing the facility in fluorescent white. She scanned her surroundings, blinking once in the glare. Then the sudden sounds of footsteps came across the corridor.

A stab of fear and panic made her break into a run. Not looking back, she rounded the next bend and slammed up against a mass of bodies, the force of which sent them all clattering to the floor. Then she lashed out as quickly as she was able to reorientate herself, kicking out with a vengeance at the grey-clad men who held weapons that looked vaguely like military-issued handguns.

One of them fell to his knees, but not before another man brought her down painfully on her side with a crunch of his weapon against her head. White-hot pain blossomed in a burst of stars, immobilising her next countermove.

Hazily, she heard Jack shouting into the headset. He was yelling her name, presumably already at the rendezvous point with the others.

Vise-like objects clamped around her arms, the roughness of their grip amplifying the pain in her head and making her wince in agony.

It was too late. _She_ was too late.

A stray memory wedged its way into her befuddled state. The coldness was as real as she remembered, a different kind of vise that had then, held the both of them captive.

_If we don't make it, I won't have any regrets. You?_

_I'll regret dying_.

Then she banished the recollection to a place where it was locked safe only for her access.

"Blow it," Sam whispered before the world went black.

* * *

"Carter!"

Jack fought the blind panic that rose like bile in his throat, barely noticing the anxiety that showed in Daniel's and Teal'c's faces.

He thrust the detonator into Daniel's slack hands, instinct and worry guiding his actions. "I'm going back." He'd break his way in by sheer, brute force if he had to. Even if it meant his own life was forfeit.

"Jack!" The incredulous but helpless note in Daniel's voice palpably radiated throughout the small space.

"O'Neill."

"You want me to leave her behind?" He glared at them, daring them to contradict his decision.

"This is going to blow and take us with it!"

Jack glanced around in the small space. A few metres to his left and they were safely out of the lion's den. But somewhere in the bowels of the facility lay Carter. Possible injured or-

He wanted, no, _needed_ her to be safe and that need was the only thing he saw in front of his eyes. Jack didn't even have to think about what he was about to do.

"Think I don't know that?" He grated out, fully recognising and regretting the burden that he'd just shifted onto the archaeologist. Daniel's sensitivity to all the shades of grey that lay between right and wrong had on multiple occasions, kept the humanity of SG-1. But wherever Daniel's moral compass was pointing right now, Jack couldn't bring himself to give any more of a damn. Not when Carter's life was on the line.

Ruthlessly, he pushed harder against the hesitation that lingered in Daniel's eyes. "If we're not back in five, I'm ordering you to get the fuck out of here and push that button. And do it fast before the workers are let back in."

Jack spun around after relaying the uncompromising order, not waiting for their protests, then ran back up the stairwell, already mapping the routes that Carter had used. He'd memorised it as well as he knew his own home in Colorado Springs, had rehearsed the scenarios with the rest of the team in the safehouse as many times as it'd taken because they'd only had one try.

Failure had never been an option. He refused to even consider it and by extension, made his team do likewise.

The burn in his lungs was slowing him down as he ran the whole circuit of Carter's route into the complex, but still Jack pushed his legs harder, willing himself to go against the agony of the pressing fatigue and pain that was steadily building behind his eyes.

Four minutes.

Unknowingly, Jack found himself repeating same words that he'd whispered to his dying son as he bled out to hospital all those years ago.

_Please, god, don't be dead…_

A strange sound that was a cross between rustling clothes and hushed whispers in an alien language chased away his morose thoughts. Jack peeked down the second corridor on the right, seeing a pair of booted feet trailing along the floor…and a dark head that dangled limply from a torso that was dragged slowly by four Aschen guards.

They were coming towards him.

His breath caught in his throat, his heart rate accelerating until all he heard was a loud pound in his ears. Then Jack shifted his grip on the zat and whipped around, discharging the blots of energy at the two left men. Without breaking his momentum, he crashed hard into the solid wall of bodies on the right, gritting his teeth at the sharp pain that lanced his shoulders and middle.

The impact sent them straight to the ground; he fell on top of one, immediately twisting around to look for a semi-conscious figure when he heard a quiet moan to his right.

_Carter!_

Dread made his movements jerky as he pulled her out of the downed heap and shifted her into an upright position, mindful of the bruises and cuts that marred her rapidly-swelling face and matted her black hair. The unfamiliarity of the dark colour on her pale face struck him anew but the small shock quickly faded as a moan escaped her lips.

"C'mon, Carter," he urged.

She blinked awake, the naked panic in her face dissolving into muted relief when she saw him. In a swift move, he'd swung her arm over his shoulder and attempted to stand, urging her gently to test the strength of her own limbs. They were going to be toast if they didn't move. To his right, Carter was regaining lucidity, the growing tenseness in her muscles subtly signalling that she was coiled as tight as a spring and ready to snap.

But their brief interlude had been a costly lapse. Their first, tentative step forward together was halted by the hard jab of the barrel of a weapon against his back.

The force of the blow pushed them to the floor once again and to his befuddlement, his limbs were refusing to move.

_Now's not the time to freeze, O'Neill! _

"Jack!"

"So…these…are our intruders." A soft voice said behind them.

Jack froze, realising that they'd underestimated the numbers of Aschen who had stayed in the facility when the alarms had gone off. But where he was suddenly immobilised, Carter was whipping around and grabbing his zat from his hand. Dimly, he heard its high-pitched whine and the heat of its energy bolts next to him, feeling rather than seeing the man fall just as the alarms screeched.

_Intruder alert._

Absently, he raised a hand to his chest, seeing it come away wet and red.

The horrifying realisation came too late. Dark liquid was pooling steadily beneath where he lay; only then did he realise that what he'd thought was the barrel of their weapon against his upper back had been, in fact, a clean shot that had severed both a critical artery in his chest and his wireless connection to the team.

He was bleeding out. Too much, too fast.

It wouldn't take a surgeon to tell him that the wound was fatal. The number of ways to easily render destructive damage to a human being's internal systems was far too many to count.

He'd been there and done that. Enough to know he was too far gone this time.

But Carter was already attempting to move him, the sluggishness of her movements making him choke out a painful breath. Her knees buckled and gave way, pulling her down in a clumsy heap.

Yet, he still counted down as he watched her fumble and try again as though from a great distance.

Two minutes.

"Jack, I can't support you. You have to move yo-"

When did breathing become a laboured effort? He stopped her with a shake of his head, leaving the obvious answer unspoken. "Go. Now."

Her face was a mask of grief and terror. "No!"

Jack had been prepared for this moment ever since he'd sat on his son's small bed with a revolver in his hands. What he hadn't expected was that it'd taken years for him to reach this point when he finally did think he had something to live for.

"Carter, that's an order."

She stared him down in reply, willing him to pick apart her defiance for not wanting to leave him behind.

The slight, answering tilt of his lips was startling. "I'd rather die myself than lose you, Carter," he struggled out the words, knowing that now as surely as he did when he'd stood on the opposite side of the force shield.

But there was no force shield separating them now; it was merely her crouching over him, her eyes bright with unshed tears and her arms around him, closer than he could have ever hoped to have.

Those words, said once during the Za'tarc confessions, now seemed a lifetime away because they harkened back to a time when Sam finally knew that the impossible had happened – that he'd felt more than just friendship for her. But then, it'd scared her as much as it had been an exhilarating revelation from him; she'd run too far, locked her reciprocal feelings in a room without wanting to think anything more of it. Now, it was all she could do not to regret all the months of uncertainty and wasted time.

"Jack."

"Go. Please."

Then he was whispering something else that she couldn't hear. Leaning forward, she pressed a kiss to his lips, finally catching what he was saying.

It made her breath catch; the painful, hot sting of tears gathered behind her eyelids with force of a coming hurricane. At that moment, blinding emotion eclipsed the urgency of her situation, leaving her body trembling with its power.

He couldn't have known, as the light left his eyes, that those three words were the only pillars of support that held her up as she stumbled towards the stairwell, back down towards the escape door and out into freedom.


	19. Reversal

**Chapter 19 - Reversal**

**Colorado Springs  
November 13, 2001**

The leaves were still green and the flowers were still blooming madly in a month when light snow usually began to dust the streets. Too much had changed, Janet thought as she sat quietly at the back of a small café in the outskirts of town with a cup of cold coffee and a plate of uneaten pancakes.

Anticipation was making her hands clammy as she waited.

The door finally swung open to a tall brunette who stepped in with a hood over her head. But if the physical change in Samantha Carter was surprising, the hollowness that bled from an icy blue gaze was downright terrifying.

Janet got to her feet in a hurry, stopping short of hugging her old friend who could have easily passed for a stranger.

"Sam," she breathed uncertainly. It was all Janet could manage in the face of someone she didn't think she knew anymore.

"Janet." A slight tilt of Sam's head towards a nearby park made it clear that she wasn't intending to say anything in the café.

Wordlessly, Janet picked up her purse and walked out of the café, observing the woman at her side, noting that the sun's welcoming warmth merely accentuated the pallor on her friend's face.

But before they could settle on an empty bench, Sam was already speaking. "Do you have what I need?"

With the silence but not the tension broken, Janet looked up at a face that was still shielded by the grey hood, suddenly unsure of this Samantha Carter who sat next to her.

As far as things went, the Earth-Aschen alliance had been hailed a resounding success. At least for those who watched the news in the safety of their homes. People hadn't needed to fear the onset of disease or sudden death; the first wave of the vaccine had been rolled out and its international distribution methods unanimously lauded by all the governments of the world.

Until now, reports of miraculous cures and the projected rise of centenarians peppered the news.

Janet knew better. But her hands had been more than tied.

Private medical practice had been promising at first, until the declining need for healthcare brought all practices under a nationalised scheme that the government officially deemed better suited to the superior technology of the Aschen.

Only after weeks of wearing the white lab coat of an assistant in an Aschen medical suite did she finally acknowledge that the path that she'd taken since the closure of the SGC was slowly bringing her back full circle to where they once started – to a place where they were merely subsumed into a larger system despite their individual and perhaps fruitless efforts to halt the Aschen medical juggernaut.

But there had been whispers of an incident that swept like wildfire within the Aschen ranks – long before official news broke on television – of an explosion that destroyed a vaccine production plant near the New Mexico border.

No one had admitted to anything; instead, it had been simply labelled a heinous, terrorist act of destruction by various petty organisations that aimed to undermine the Aschen's goodwill.

It was an act that had also been condemned by all those who cared to give a statement full of tired platitudes, then rendered fully pointless and ineffective when the Aschen themselves reassured the public of the existence of many such other production plants that would more than make up for the destruction of the one in New Mexico.

Janet privately nursed her own suspicions, but let them go unvoiced in a world where the slightest bit of doubt was taken to be dissent.

A phone call on a quiet evening not long after that incident had changed everything.

Thinking that it was a stalking colleague from work, she had picked it up with a touch of annoyance, only to hear a broken voice that she'd never in her life associated with Sam Carter. The call had only confirmed her suspicions that the former SG-1 had played their dutiful roles in the facility's destruction, but that something had also happened to a team that previously did and got away with the impossible.

Something that had finally proven the team was made of flesh and blood and broken bones after all.

Something so disastrous for Sam to have asked a single request of her.

_Could you get access to the Aschen computers? _

Janet had hesitated, knowing that it wasn't as impossible as it seemed, despite assistants in any Aschen-controlled laboratory having extremely restricted access to the basic functions of the Aschen computing network. Even then, the Aschen language and script had been a natural barrier in furthering any kind of human understanding of their technology, an obstacle that the Aschen hadn't bothered to remove because it had conveniently helped keep their machines and equipment beyond the reach of their lesser Earth partners.

Sam had admitted to what she was looking for on a shuddering sigh.

_I'm looking for the date of the next solar flare. We're going to throw a message through the wormhole. Back to Earth, before SG-1 visits Aschen Prime._

The pieces of the jigsaw had quickly fallen into place after that. Early on, an incident with a solar flare had sent SG-1 back to 1969 and it was Hammond's quick note that had brought them back. Flares, as Sam had explained so long ago, were impossible to predict. That much Janet had remembered. But she also thought that her worry had been merited. Had they the right to change the course of history for the entire human race?

All Sam had told her was that they'd be living to see the end of their race.

Even she had to concede to that. So she'd agreed. But it had taken her almost six months of scheming, lying and talking to the right people just to glean that small piece of information. The price to pay for that however, had been too high – Cassie disappearing from school one day, a sudden pay cut at work and a whole other list of obstacles – all of which made her wonder when she'd become the person she was.

But she'd done it after all, satisfied that she was playing a role, as small as it was, in the risky plan that Sam had formulated.

With an effort, Janet pulled herself back into the present. "I have what you need. November 30. At 0314 hrs. Miss this opportunity and the next one will be October 12, 2002, at 1618 hrs."

Sam was staring straight ahead, her restless fingers playing with the hem of her jacket, a trait that had O'Neill written all over it. It was a while before she spoke.

"Thank you." Then with a softer voice, she continued, "Janet, I know this hasn't been easy for you. But if it all goes well…"

The twinge of concern Janet felt bloomed into a sinking feeling that went straight to her stomach. This was goodbye, indirectly said with an equal measure of hope and dread.

"The terminal is a heavily-guarded."

"It's all we've got."

Janet stood and drew Sam into a gentle hug, taking comfort in the knowledge that even this particular conversation would wink out of existence if they succeeded.

"I know. Good luck."

* * *

**J.R. Reed Space Terminal  
Washington, D.C.  
November 30, 2001**

They hadn't intended to make it out of the complex, having had days to contemplate the various outcomes of this mission, all of which pointed to only one end. The decision had elicited stoic acceptance from Teal'c and resignation from Daniel. For Sam, it was merely an ending that seemed fitting for a broken world and a broken team.

And it was her calm acknowledgment of this fact that was lending a reckless edge to her movements as she strode into the space terminal. The sight of the Stargate, standing so majestically against the glass windows, was a reminder of why they had to succeed this time. With merely some zats, a piton gun and lots of guts, Sam knew too well that they rode on the luck that had seemed so abundant when SG-1 traipsed the galaxy.

Yet even that seemed to have run out when Jack had died.

But she was desperate enough to risk this – to risk everything for a reversal that brought them all back to a time where the future hadn't looked too terrifying to envisage and one that brought him _back_ to her. In the past six months, hindsight had been her punishment rather than her salvation. The numerous times she'd sat and thought of their last moments in New Mexico had simply brought back the missteps and the mistakes that had led to an inevitable outcome that she wished had been different.

If only she had been faster, more careful or-

Even so, time and again, Sam had returned to the conclusion that Jack wouldn't have wanted her to dwell. She knew him well enough to accept that he'd sooner go out on a bang than waste away as a disease ate his body from the inside out.

Even if it meant he risked it all, and lost. Unfortunately, that was exactly what he did.

Jack's flyboy attitude towards dying hadn't stopped the constant self-recrimination that had threatened to sink her into a pit of depression. Fearful for her sanity, it was only a week after he'd been gone that Daniel had laid a gentle hand on her shoulder in front of his makeshift memorial and hesitantly suggested that she could actually be in a position to do something about it. Mired in grief, Sam hadn't realised what Daniel was really saying, until the glint of sunlight on the windowpane of the safe house sparked an idea that had slowly morphed into a full-fledged plan.

So for the last time, they were risking it all, not just for Earth, for the SGC, for Hammond and Cassie, but also for Jack.

And as selfish as it had seemed, she knew that the universe wasn't done with him.

Sam brushed the GDO that was tucked safely in her pocket, needing the reassuring feel of its plastic presence. Months ago, when they'd left the SGC for the safe house, they'd opted to take everything that they could and SG-1's GDO was one of the devices that had been hurried thrown into a bag and carted away with them.

Now she was glad for that particular piece of equipment that could very well help save them all. Her fingers clutched the piece of paper that lay next to the GDO, the only other lifeline that she'd meant to send to her other self who would hopefully learn to shake off the coat of self-denial long enough to realise what she needed to do.

A ghost of worry flitted into her mind.

Could she sufficiently limit the violation of causality by writing a note simple yet obscure enough for her other self to decipher on the other side of the wormhole? But…what if it were _too_ obscure? More importantly, what if things didn't changed too much after the SGC received the note? What if-?

Sam shook her head slightly to clear the fog that had gathered at the edges of her brain.

The clock was ticking down.

Then she moved, lobbing a stun grenade over the main staircase as she drew out her zat, taking careful aim at the circular defence drones that encircled the large, cavernous space and pressed its trigger. The loud whine of the zat's electrical discharge and the sudden billow of smoke set off the shrill wail of alarms and threw all personnel manning the gate into a frenzied dive for cover.

An announcement boomed over the fray.

_The terminal is under attack. Please evacuate the building immediately._

From the corner of her eye, Sam saw Daniel and Teal'c springing into action from opposite corners of the hall. Then she heard the buzzing whizz of the piton gun as its grappling hook buried itself deep into the wall above the gate.

Daniel.

After many rounds of practice that she'd drilled into him, he'd mastered its projectile trajectory perfectly.

But as the guards who stood next to the gate crumpled to the ground under the continuous zat fire, a mass of grey-clad bodies burst through the emergency exits, armed with handheld weapons that fired the same needle-pricking energy bolts as the defence drones did.

Sam muttered a vicious oath when she saw them closing in.

Keeping her line of sight on the automated drones, she helplessly watched Daniel slide down the piton line, screaming in agony as the merciless bolts pierced deep, smoking holes into his back. He let go of his weakening grip on the line, the loud, dull thud of his body hitting the ground reaching her ears. But still, he crawled, hands outstretched towards the DHD, only to finally still beneath the force of the drone's fire.

"Daniel!"

Sam bit back tears of anger and grief, despite knowing full well the consequences of this fateful mission, then drew out her last two grenades.

The second found its place among the guards that poured in from the main entrance. The third landed at the threshold of the emergency exits. The deafening blasts from the near-simultaneous explosions knocked them over, giving both her and Teal'c a precious five-second window to act.

Just as she got ready to move, a stray bolt fired from a handheld weapon burned a deep hole in her left shoulder, its initial deep, bloodless stab making her cry out in surprise and pain.

But as her strength faltered, a voice very much like Jack's whispered into her ear.

_Hold it, Carter! _

The shock made her pause for a split-second. Was it him talking in her mind? Or-

_Jack, I can't…_

His whispered plea was strangely soothing. _Yes, you can, for all of us. Focus. Steady. _

_Jack, please. _

_Just a bit more, Carter. I promise. _

_For you, then. _

Gritting her teeth with the effort of forcing the pain out of her mind, Sam shifted her zat to the last of the defence drones as Teal'c leapt onto the piton line. He got further than Daniel did, taking a few hits before moving swiftly over to the DHD to punch in the address they knew so well.

The chevrons locked painfully slowly as the gate spun into motion.

Freed from their initial disorientation, the guards were advancing once again, their firing weapons piercing the smoke of the explosion.

"Teal'c, cover me!"

He heard her, holding his position as the thin red beams found their mark in his chest.

The sudden whoosh of rippling blue made Sam back away from her crouch on the second level. Then she sprinted for the escalator, dodging the machines as best as she could and forced herself into a tight tumble down the steps. Even then, the energy bolts cut into her arms and into her back as she finally hit the ground level.

So close.

_C'mon, Carter, you can do it. _

Still, Jack urged his encouragement in her head as she staggered over Teal'c and Daniel's slumped forms. She kept her eyes on the wormhole, reaching into her pocket for the piece of paper with a bloodied hand.

It crumpled further in her tight grip, now smeared red.

The steps of the platform beckoned to her, the chaos of the surroundings converging on a single point.

_Now!_

She flung the note into the air as a volley of bolts hit her upper body, the force causing her to twist and convulse with their impact. Finally, she fell face down onto the steps, panting her exhaustion. And it seemed as though Jack was falling with her, his affectionate words of comfort lingering in her head.

_You did it, Carter. I always knew you could. _

Amidst the chaos, the walls were closing in and the pain of the Aschen weapon burns was strangely receding. Overhead, the lights were bright, white and glaring.

Faintly, Sam thought that they reminded her of the veins of artificial lighting that ran through the corridors of the SGC, and how the corridors led up to the control room and to the briefing room, where SG-1 sat and discussed their missions.

To her right had been her commanding officer, the bravest man she'd ever known, loved and lost. Opposite of her, Daniel and Teal'c, her friends and stalwart comrades in a war that saw no end.

Then Jack seemed to whisper again_. That's us, Carter_.

The image brought a small smile to her face as her eyes fell shut to a vision of a future that had yet to be written. Someday SG-1 will live again. They will explore planets and by her side, Jack would be there again. Whole, unchanged, alive.

But not today.

She took her last breath, seeing the arc of the paper hit the rippling energy of the wormhole, secure in the knowledge that SG-1 will be there for Earth once more.


	20. Anew

**Chapter 20 - Anew**

**Colorado Springs  
December 15, 2000**

The night was clear and cold and for the first time in a long while, Sam was glad that she had closed the lab early in favour of a quiet evening curled up on the couch.

Now that their next mission to P4C-970 had been scrubbed, she found herself with a gaping slot in her calendar that had meant an extra period of downtime, which always left her at a loss.

Maybe she'd help Janet with the Christmas party that she was intending to throw for the SGC. Or maybe opt for something more sedate at home like cleaning.

Anything to take her mind off the bloodstained note that had her own writing and her DNA on it.

Earlier in the gate room, the piece of paper had shot through the wormhole and hit the ground with a bounce. The Colonel had picked it up, read it, and handed it to her wordlessly when it became clear that it had been partially addressed to herself.

_Lock P4C-970 out of the dialling computer. _

_There is no guarantee, no end in sight. Your greatest fears aren't what you think. _

_Do what you need to do. _

There was no guarantee to…what? No easy end to the Goa'uld war? And what part did her fears play in this?

She groaned aloud. The cryptic note was exasperating and obscure, like a riddle to which she had no answer. But hadn't that been the point? Whatever the note had meant, the short, terse words that she'd written to herself had cut deeply. Or maybe they were meant to.

What had her future self faced that she'd thought to do this?

Sam sank deeper into the couch, suddenly hating the quietness of her empty house that gave too much latitude to her racing thoughts.

That the note had bluntly addressed fears wasn't lost on her. So just what exactly was the note alluding to?

Over the years, she'd had many: the fear of failing in her early relationships, the fear of never doing what she'd dreamed of doing, the fear of never winning her father's approval. All of them had taken centre stage at different points in time and had, ironically, been the greatest stumbling blocks she'd also faced.

But contrary to what many people thought, the loss of her commission or her career wasn't going to be the end of the world.

So what was it? After four or so years of being in the SGC and in the greatest team she'd ever hoped to find?

It took her minutes to mentally articulate that her greatest fear had always been losing the Colonel before they'd gone any further in a non-work relationship and that for a long time now, she'd dreaded a life without him more than a future with him and the consequences that would bring.

Her continuous denial of the attraction that lay between them would keep things as they are. But to deny the potential of them because she feared something else more nebulous than the regulations indicated something more foolish and dishonest than she'd thought herself capable.

No matter what the Colonel thought or felt, she was done hiding, done being tired of not knowing how things stood between them.

But was that all that she needed to do?

Realisation and retaliatory action went hand in hand. At least, that blend of impulse and instinct happened in O'Neill's universe and for all the time that she'd spent in there, this particular element of his personality that had helped them so much off-world was starting to rub off on her.

Sam grabbed her car keys, propelled only by the need to see him.

Twenty minutes later, she stood at his door, wondering if this was also one of the stupidest things she was about to do.

Relief and disappointment warred within her when no one answered her hurried knocks.

Just as she turned to go, his voice, hoarse with sleep but tinged with incredulity, reached her ears.

"Carter? That you?"

Her heart slammed into her chest.

He was on the roof.

"Sir?"

"Carter, what are you do…nevermind. Come on up."

With a deep breath, she climbed the wooden steps, reaching the top only to see him reclining in the foldable beach chair, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

O'Neill was looking at her with open curiosity, gesturing an awkward greeting with a bottle clutched tightly in his hand.

He looked good, she thought, fingering the hem of her blouse nervously. Then throwing caution to the wind, she spoke.

"Jack, we need to talk."

_- Fin_

* * *

_A/N: There you go. I thought long and hard about this ending, but I'm hoping you did notice that it's not as open-ended as you think it is. In fact, it's an attempt to draw a parallel here with the scene on Jack's roof in Chapter 13, with the implication that things do, in fact, proceed that way from here onwards, but with a much happier end. Thanks for reading!_


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